The visiting Homer football team defeated Barrow 6-0 on Saturday in the Division III semifinals.
The Mariners (4-5 overall) will face Kenai Central in the Division III final on Saturday, Oct. 19, at 1:30 p.m. at Wasilla High School.
“Beating Barrow in Barrow playing the way we did was huge,” Homer head coach Justin Zank said. “It was a big time win. I’m super proud of the guys.
“It was a gritty, gutsy win.”
Homer, which won the Division III state title in 2022 for the first state title in school history, was seeded fourth in the playoffs after finishing 2-3 in the Mid Alaska Conference.
That 2-3 mark included a 30-20 loss to Barrow and also a three-game losing streak to end the season. The Whalers (5-3) were the top seed after finishing 5-0 in the Mid Alaska Conference.
Zank said the Whalers have a great home-field advantage playing on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. He said Saturday’s temperature was around 30 degrees, with some good blasts of wind at times. The field had some snow on it and was slick.
“Everything was against us,” Zank said. “Our offensive style isn’t conducive to this kind of weather.
“It was a complete team victory in all three phases of the ball.”
The victory is even sweeter because of the way Homer lost in the semifinals 21-16 to Kenai last season, getting scored on twice in the final minute.
“Yeah,” Zank said. “Considering Barrow had the ball inside the 10-yard line with 25 seconds left, and that 25 seconds lasted for about 10 minutes.”
The coach said the Mariners were able to make a defensive stand to win the game.
The deciding points ended up being a rushing touchdown by Justus Grimes on the opening drive of the game.
That was enough for the Homer defense.
“The defense had a good game plan,” Zank said. “The guys executed extremely well. Barrow had chances to score. We had some big time stops.”
Zank said the defensive effort was led by Nikifor Reutov, Preston Stanislaw and Austin Briscoe.
Stanislaw also was back to being the full-time quarterback after working his way back from injury.
“We executed extremely well on that opening drive, and we did enough the rest of the game to chew up enough clock to keep them off the field,” Zank said.
