The South High football team celebrates after winning the state Division I football championship game against West High on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026 at Colony High in Palmer. (Photo by Stephanie Burgoon)

PALMER — In order to accomplish a feat that no team had done in two and a half decades, the South Anchorage football team had to do what no team in Alaska had managed to do all season: beat No. 1-ranked West Anchorage.

The Eagles soared into this year’s state final with a sterling 9-0 record against in-state opponents, which included a come-from-behind victory over the reigning state champions.

However, on a frigid Friday night at Colony High School, the Wolverines handed West its second defeat of the season with a 14-6 triumph.

In doing so, South became the first team to win back-to-back Division I/Large School state titles since Dimond did it at the turn of the century in 2000 and 2001.

“It feels great making history,” senior Kaiden Coleman-Arroyo said. “This hasn’t been done in 25 years, and it feels great to be the (team) to break it.”

The path Coleman-Arroyo was forced to take to get back to this point mirrored the entire team’s. He overcame an early injury that caused him to miss most of the season, but when it came time to shine on the biggest stage, he did so in some key moments.

“Getting hurt early in the season sucked a lot,” Coleman-Arroyo said. “It sucked a lot watching these boys from the sideline, losing our first two with me out. It means the world to be back. This team worked so hard since last year to get back here and this means everything to head home with the (championship).”

With the game tied 6-6 and West driving into the red zone, Coleman-Arroyo came down with a pass over the middle for a clutch red-zone interception at the South 2-yard line on the first play of the fourth quarter.

“That’s something that we practice at South,” Coleman-Arroyo said. “We have a great coaching staff, they get us ready, they get us moving our hips. As soon as I saw the quarterback flip his hips, I knew he was throwing it up.”

South High’s Ethan Yarrington breaks through the line during the state Division I football championship game against West High on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026 at Colony High in Palmer. (Photo by Stephanie Burgoon)

With their heels up against their own goal line, disaster nearly struck. South star senior running back and wildcat quarterback Ethan Yarrington had a snap bounce off his facemask, and he was fortunate that his forward progress was halted after only a loss of a yard.

The Wolverines proceeded to mount a 99-yard drive that spanned 14 plays and ate up nearly 10 minutes of game clock. It ended with Yarrington punching the ball across the goal line from four yards out for his second touchdown of the game and Coleman-Arroyo made it an eight-point game when he scored on the two-point conversion.

“It means a lot that our coaches trust me in that moment, so I didn’t want to let them down,” Coleman-Arroyo said. “I didn’t want to let the team down, so I had to give it my all to get in there.”

After a nice return on the ensuing kickoff, West got the ball nearly at midfield with just under two minutes to work with and a pair of timeouts.

As they did so many times throughout the game, the Wolverines’ defense stood tall and came up with a huge stop to force a four-and-out.

The South High football team celebrates after winning the state Division I football championship game against West High on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026 at Colony High in Palmer. (Photo by Stephanie Burgoon)

Not only did the Eagles not pick up a first down or a single yard on their final drive, they lost yardage as junior quarterback Tatum Pogtis threw incompletions on first, third and fourth down and was sacked on second.

“It was amazing, and I knew our defense could do it,” Yarrington said. “When we came out there and did it, it showed that I can give everything to this team and they’re going to give something back to everybody around us. We gave it all out there.”

The South coaches preach a bend-but-don’t-break philosophy on defense and when it came to the red zone, the Wolverines put up an impenetrable wall for the final three quarters.

“It was massive,” South head coach John Lewis said. “That (West) defense was the best, we’re the best right now. We’re the best damn team in the state two years in a row.”

As key as the Wolverines’ defensive stop was at the end of the game to seal the victory, the one they came up with at the end of the first half is what truly turned the tide in their favor in this game.

West had driven all the way down inside the South 5-yard line. But with no timeouts and time expiring, the Eagles opted to run the ball up the middle and got stuffed, leaving the game tied 6-6.

“That was huge and gave us a lot of momentum going into the half,” Coleman-Arroyo said. “We knew we had them right where we wanted them; we just had to come out and execute.”

Lewis’ message to his team at halftime was “We know we can beat these guys, we’ve got to stop the penalties and different things like that.”

“God bless them, they just kept going,” he said. “We knew that you had to be able to hit them and hit them hard to be able to sit there and withstand the blows, and they did.”

This game pitted two of the most elusive and hardest-to-bring-down ball carriers in the state against each other one last time in Yarrington and West star running back Manny Maga.

West High’s Manny Maga sheds a potential South High tackler during the state Division I football championship game on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026 at Colony High in Palmer. (Photo by Stephanie Burgoon)

They each ran for more than 160 yards by grinding out hard-earned first downs and ripping off chunk plays for their respective teams. But in the end, it was Yarrington, the two-time reigning Cook Inlet Conference Offensive Player of the Year, who powered his team to victory.

As a wildcat quarterback, he only threw the ball three times and completed just one pass for six yards. However, he ran the ball nearly 30 times for more than 200 rushing yards and a pair of scores, with his first being one of his best highlights of the season.

He took the direct snap to the right and, after breaking a couple of tackles in the backfield, reversed to the left. Once he got past the line of scrimmage, Yarrington cut back across the field to the right and outraced the West defense to the end zone.

“It’s all heart,” Yarrington said. “I love this game, and I love this team and I’ll do anything to win for this team.”

Given the journey they took to get back to this point and how even more arduous it was than even last year, it made winning it all again even sweeter.

South High’s Conner Trotter raises his arms after a play during the state Division I football championship game against West High on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026 at Colony High in Palmer. (Photo by Stephanie Burgoon)

“It means more,” Yarrington said. “Trying new things and new positions like quarterback put me in a tough spot, but adversity is the word of the day that we always use during practice, and we live by that word.”

He initially thought the wildcat quarterback role would be an occasional change-up play for short-yardage situations, but it became the Wolverines’ identity and winning formula on offense down the stretch and into the playoffs.

“I know my teammates have my back and every time I’m pushing down that field with the ball in my hands, I know they’re pushing with me,” Yarrington said.

Yarrington intends to play football at the collegiate level but hasn’t decided where that will be. For now, he’s just savoring going out as a two-time defending state champion.

“To look around and what we became as a team, I never could have imagined it,” he said. “For us to go back-to-back, it’s all in my heart and we love it.”