Wheeler earned the JDHS Hard Hat Award

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“She played with unrelenting pressure and drive and pulled us back into the game today,” Dusenberry said.

The girls are now on the outside of the state tournament bubble and need Colony to defeat Wasilla on Tuesday, and then the Crimson Bears need to defeat Wasilla twice next weekend at Adair Kennedy Memorial Park to earn one of the three state tournament berths from the Railbelt Conference.

Friday game times are boys at 5:15 p.m. and girls at 7 p.m.

The Crimson Bears will be honoring their seniors on country wise email marketing list Saturday, the girls at 5 p.m. before their 5:30 game and the boys following the girls game and before the boys 7 p.m. game.

Wasilla currently leads the girls’ RBC with a 4-1 record (14-3-1 overall), with Colony second at 5-2 (12-5 OA), Lathrop third at 4-4 (8-5 OA), JDHS 2-4 (5-7-1 OA) and West Valley 2-6 (6-7-1 OA).

The JDHS boys moved to the top of the RBC and now own a 4-0-2 record (7-1-3 overall). Colony is second at 4-1-2 RBC (14-1-2 OA), West Valley 4-3-1 (8–5-1 OA), Wasilla 2-2-1 (10-5-3 OA) and Lathrop 0-8 (4-9 OA).

Four teams earn berths from the Cook Inlet Conference, three from the RBC and one at-large berth is selected from the two conferences as well.

All state qualifiers are then seeded by the Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA) soccer RPI – or strength of schedule – rankings.

The top 10 girls teams are South Anchorage (CIC), Dimond (CIC), Wasilla (RBC), Service (CIC), Colony (RBC), Lathrop (RBC), Chugiak (CIC), West Valley (RBC), West Anchorage (CIC), and JDHS. CIC’s Bartlett, Eagle River and East Anchorage are out of contention.

Current RPI DI boys top-10 rankings are Colony (RBC), JDHS (RBC), West Anchorage (CIC), Dimond (CIC), West Valley (CIC), Service (CIC), Wasilla (RBC), South Anchorage (CIC), Chugiak (CIC) and Lathrop (RBC). CIC’s East Anchorage, Bartlett and Eagle River are out of contention.

“I think we have to win both to win the conference,” Lehnhart said. “But honestly that doesn’t mean a whole lot. We qualified for state through the conference but winning it doesn’t really help us other than it puts a feather in our hat. What we need to do is win two against Wasilla to have any shot at the number-one seed. That would be the ideal thing.”