The Soldotna hockey team defeated Homer 2-1 on Thursday in Northern Lights Conference action at Kevin Bell Arena in Homer.

The Stars moved to 4-3 in the league and 8-5 overall, while the Mariners dropped to 0-8 in the league and 2-10 overall.

Before the game, John Carlin was honored for coaching hockey at Soldotna for nearly 10 years in the 1990s and for coaching Homer for three years from 2013 to 2016.

Carlin is fighting stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Thursday’s game was the inaugural Carlin Cup. Coaches arranged for both teams to wear custom purple socks in honor of Carlin and pancreatic cancer awareness.

The Mariners are in their first season back after taking last season off due to a lack of players, but fought hard for the Carlin Cup.

Cohen Boyd scored an unassisted power-play goal in the first period to give the home squad the lead.

Blaise Banks nearly made that one goal stand up in net for Homer. Banks made 35 saves for the Mariners, while Brycen Clyde stopped eight for the Stars.

Gehret Medcoff was able to save the day for Soldotna. With 11:43 left in the game, Medcoff tied it on assists from Daniel Heath and Luke Stuber.

Just 37 seconds later, Medcoff had the game-winner on a Heath assist.

Photo by Emilie Springer Cody Thomas, junior, number 8 and Blaise Banks, senior, number 30 at the Carlin Cup game in Homer on Jan. 11.