After ending last season on a sour note, Eagle River football team roars back with 57-0 shutout

Led by seniors Kolton Carlson and Nate Guderian, the Eagle River Wolves steamrolled and shut out the Homer Mariners in a 57-0 season-opening victory in a non-conference game Saturday at Eagle River High School.

Carlson rushed for 124 yards and four touchdowns, and Guderian intercepted three passes to help Eagle River, a Division II team, dismantle Homer, a Division III team.

“Kolton is relentless,” Wolves coach Brad Myers said. “He doesn’t quit and has got wheels from start to finish.”

Guderian, who is also the starting quarterback, had what would’ve been a fourth interception bounce off his hands and hit the turf late in the fourth quarter when the Mariners were threatening to spoil the Wolves’ shutout.

“I was reading (the Homer quarterback) every time,” said Guderian. “We ran a lot of what their plays were and I just stayed with my guy.”

Eagle River was one of Alaska’s hottest Division II teams last season, but a COVID-19 outbreak prior to their first playoff game forced the Wolves to forfeit, ending a season that had brought high hopes.

“It was definitely hard because we had a lot of seniors last year, and it was hard on them to have to cancel our season early because we wanted to win that championship,” Carlson said.

The Wolves were motivated to begin to begin this season on a high note after the previous one ended on a sour one. And while they accomplished that, they know that they won’t be facing lower-level competition every week.

“We have Soldotna and teams like that,” said Guderian. “This was to see if our team was ready for the big teams and we had a lot of flags, so we still have to work on a lot of things.”

After racking up 50 points in the first half, a running clock and undisciplined play limited the Wolves to seven points in the second half.

Eagle River had three plays of 40 or more yards called back because of either holding or illegal blindside block penalties. Two of them were touchdowns and the other would’ve put the Wolves a yard or two short of the goal line.

Homer didn’t have enough players to field a junior varsity team, so Eagle River combined its varsity and junior varsity teams and was able to get players from both units playing time.

Senior backup quarterback Benjamin Collins showed off his arm and finished as the team’s leading passer with 95 yards on just three attempts, two of which he completed to fellow senior Auston Little Dog, who led Eagle River in receiving with 70 yards.

His third completion was 15-yard touchdown strike to junior Kaleb Sherman in back left corner of the end zone. Sherman had some long runs and receptions where he showed some impressive elusiveness negated by penalties.