High school sports are back in Alaska, and the Colony Knights celebrated with a 49-0 victory over the Palmer Moose in a Friday night game that showed what the new-normal football may look like.

In some sections of the bleachers, spectators gathered in small clusters at Palmer’s Machetanz Field, socially distant from one another.

Team managers wore masks as they delivered water to players on the sideline, and a Senior Night ceremony preceded the game — an early season oddity. Usually seniors are honored at the final home game of the season, but this year some teams are opting for season-opening Senior Nights, just in case COVID-19 shuts things down again.

This week marks the first time Alaska high schools have competed in interscholastic sports since the new coronavirus put an end to competition on the eve of the state basketball tournaments back in mid-March.

One big change is limits on crowd sizes. The Colony-Palmer game typically draws 2,000 to 2,500 spectators, but only 700 tickets distributed for Friday’s game.

With about six minutes remaining in the first half, Palmer was a guilty of a facemasking penalty that inspired an announcement that may become familiar in this season of COVID-19.

“Speaking of facemasking penalties, we want to remind you to wear those face masks,” the public address announced said.

The penalty put the Knights on the Palmer 6-yard line, and one play later they were in the end zone for a 17-0 lead they carried into the half.

Colony absolutely dominated the matchup between schools from different divisions. The Knights play in Division I with the rest of Alaska’s large schools and and Palmer plays in Division II, which is for medium-sized schools.

Both teams had similar records last season — Colony was 5-5 and Palmer 5-4.

But the Knights were beasts at the end of the season, winning four of their last five games and making a deep playoff run. They knocked off defending state champion East 28-27 in the first round of the state playoffs before losing to Service 27-18 in the state semifinals.

The game was part of a season-opening weekend featuring just five games across Alaska. A number of schools, including all eight in Anchorage, either aren’t playing yet or started practicing late because of high number of COVID-19 cases in their regions.

It’s been five months since high school athletes last competed. Spring sports were canceled statewide, but fall sports got the go-ahead in several Alaska school districts, including the Mat-Su Borough School District. The five Valley football teams — Colony, Palmer, Wasilla, Houston and Redington — will only play each other this season as part of the district’s mitigation plan to limit spread of the virus.

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