For veteran members of the Homer High School hockey team, Saturday’s ASAA First National Cup Hockey State Championship game might have caused a case of deja vu, but with a drastically different outcome.

A tight match against the Palmer Moose in the final game of the Division II state hockey tournament heading into overtime is exactly how things played out two years ago — only this time, Homer was the team that came out on top.

The Mariners defended their state championship title from last year with a 3-2 victory over the Moose Saturday at the Curtis. D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, and in doing so avenged their loss from 2019. The team won the first state championship in program history last year by defeating the Soldotna Stars 4-1.

In 2019, the Moose had snatched the championship title away with a 6-5 overtime victory.

This year, they looked to repeat that victory, coming out strong with two unanswered goals less than two minutes into the first period of the game. Xander Logan netted the first goal unassisted, while Nathan Wheeler scored the second with help from Bryce Armstrong and Matias Broughton.

For first-year varsity head coach Mike Barth, it definitely felt good to watch the team come back from that 2-0 deficit in the first period to win the game.

“It was good to see that the team stuck together and battled through it,” he said.

After those two early shots got by him, Homer goaltender Keegan Strong didn’t allow another goal for the rest of the game, saving a total of 24 out of 26 shots. The Mariners outshot the Moose, with Palmer goaltender Jackson Heard stopping 31 out of 34 total shots.

Homer’s Casey Otis started the Mariners’ recovery during a power play with a second-period goal assisted by Haylee Owen and Bergen Knutson. Matfey Reutov, who was later named player of the game for Homer, scored the game-tying goal about halfway through the third period, with an assist from Karl Wickstrom.

Neither team could sneak another goal in before the end of the game, sending it into overtime. A few minutes into that overtime period, Palmer’s Broughton got sent to the penalty box for hooking, giving the Mariners the advantage they needed for the power-play goal that clinched the game, scored by Hunter Green.

For Green, the win meant more than just a championship title. He told the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman that the game was also for the Homer seniors of 2019, who came so close to a championship but lost to Palmer in the end.

“We got ‘em — we got ‘em back,” Green told the Frontiersman. “That was for Tucker Weston, Lee Lowe, Brenna (McCarron). That was for all of our seniors that we lost that year that never got to win a championship.”

For Palmer, Wheeler was named player of the game, and Jeremy Horacek, Carter Greco and Heard were named to the all-tournament team. For Homer, Strong, Green and Otis were named to the all-tournament team.

As a coach, Barth said last year’s state victory was something he had hoped to continue. This year had a lot of variables though — the team didn’t start the season even knowing whether they’d get a chance to defend their title. Barth said he’s glad that chance did come.

“Some of them definitely put a lot of value into winning that, especially the seniors,” Barth said of the players.

Looking back on the season as a whole, Barth noted that it takes a lot of resilience to deal with the year they’ve had — one full of masks, constantly changing schedules and limited teams to play against.Watching the Mariners play on Saturday, he said he was proud of how they came together, put personal goals or wishes aside and committed to doing what was best for the team.

“It wasn’t about one person,” he said after his squad finished 5-5 overall.

Barth said things could have gone differently if any of the players had lost their focus or been distracted by penalties or other aspects of the game.

“It took all of them being focused,” he said of the win.

Barth said that while the team wasn’t sure what version of a hockey season they were going to get this year, they were able to focus on what came their way.

“It just can’t be stated enough, just the mental fortitude it took to do that,” he said of the team.

Palmer becomes this year’s state championship runner up.

The Mariners had started out the tournament on Thursday with a 6-3 victory over the Houston Hawks. Green scored two goals, one unassisted and the other assisted by Brock Barth. Barth scored a goal of his own with help from Green and Matfey Reutov. Kazden Stineff contributed a goal assisted by Sam Banks, and the final two were scored by Dyland Arno, unassisted, and by Otis with help from Banks and Elias Allen.

For the Hawks, goals were made by Eric Preboski, unassisted, Anfim Konev assisted by Afanasy Efimov, and finally by Efimov unassisted.

The Mariners secured their place in the championship game with a 4-1 win over North Pole on Friday in the semi final game. The first two goals were netted by Fiona Hatton, assisted by Stineff, and Owen, assisted by Wickstrom and Allen. Matfey Reutov scored the third goal, and Otis finished out the game with an empty-net goal. North Pole’s lone goal was put up in the second period by Mason Wilbur.

Thursday

Mariners 6, Hawks 3

Homer: 0, 2, 4 — 6

Houston: 0, 2, 1 — 3

First period goals — none. Penalties — none.

Second period goals — 1. Houston, Preboski (unassisted); 2. Houston, Konev (Efimov); 3.Homer, Green (Barth); 4. Homer, Barth (Green, Reutov). Penalties — none.

Third period goals — 5. Houston, Efimov (unassisted); 6. Homer, Stineff (Banks); 7. Homer, Green (unassisted); 8. Homer, Arno (unassisted); 9. Homer, Otis (Banks, Allen). Penalties — Houston 1 for 5:00.

Goalies: Homer, Strong (26 shots, 23 saves); Houston, Burnside (30 shots, 24 saves)

Friday

Mariners 4, Patriots 1

Homer: 2, 1, 1 — 4

North Pole: 0, 1, 0 — 1

First period goals — 1. Homer, Hatton (Stineff), 9:43; 2. Homer, Owen (Wickstrom, Allen), 10:58. Penalties — Homer 2 for 4:00; North Pole 2 for 4:00.

Second period goals — 3. North Pole, Wilbur (Holan, Jusczak), 6:19; 4. Homer, Reutov (un.), 10:13. Penalties — Homer 2 for 4:00; North Pole 1 for 2:00.

Third period goals — 5. Homer, Otis (unassisted), 13:53. Penalties — none.

Goalies — Homer, Strong (30 shots, 29 saves); North Pole, Clark (31 shots, 27 saves).

Saturday

Mariners 3, Moose 2, OT

Homer: 0, 1, 1, 1 — 3

Palmer: 2, 0, 0, 0 — 2

First period goals — 1. Palmer, Logan (unassisted), 1:22; 2. Palmer, Wheeler (Armstrong, Broughton), 1:48. Penalties — Homer 1 for 2:00; Palmer 2 for 4:00.

Second period goals — 3. Homer, Otis (Owen, Knutson), pp, 3:05. Penalties — Palmer 4 for 19:00.

Third period goals — 4. Homer, Reutov (Wickstrom), 6:20. Penalties — Homer 1 for 2:00; Palmer 1 for 2:00.

Overtime goals — 5. Homer, Green (unassisted), pp, 3:02. Penalties — Palmer 1 for 2:00.

Goalies — Homer, Strong (26 shots, 24 saves); Palmer, Heard (34 shots, 31 saves).

Homer’s Haylee Owen looks for a place to pass the puck during the ASAA First National Cup Hockey State Championship game for Division II schools Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021 at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, Alaska. (Photo by Tim Rockey/Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman)