Chugiak senior Greg Ghramm has basically spent three full seasons as the Mustangs' featured back, and get a load of the career rushing totals he has produced.

Ghramm has lugged the ball a remarkable 610 times in his varsity career and delivered 3,259 yards and 34 rushing touchdowns.

Ghramm possesses decent speed, but his real forte -- other than his durability -- is how hard he hits the hole, doesn't often go down on first contact and consistently moves the pile.

Casey Cusack, the man known for 320-yard drives and for winning all Alaska’s major golf titles in dominating fashion this summer, last weekend became the first player from Alaska to reach the match-play portion of The U. S. Mid-Amateur Championship.
The championship is designated for golfers 25 and older and is being played at the ultra-challenging Atlantic Golf Club in Bridgehampton, New York.
Cusack shot 74 in the first round of stroke play and a 76 in the second round to earn the 28th seed.

The prep football playoffs start this weekend and the quarterfinal pairings are as follows:

Large Schools
Game 1: West vs. West Valley, Anchorage Football Stadium, Friday, 7 p.m.
Game 2: Chugiak at Juneau, Saturday at 7 p.m.
Game 3: Dimond at Colony, Friday at 7 p.m.
Game 4: Palmer vs. Service, Dimond High, Saturday, 4 p.m.

Small Schools (All games on Saturday)
Game 1: Thunder Mountain at Soldotna, 4 p.m.
Game 2: Skyview at Eielson, 1 p.m.
Game 3: Homer at Nikiski, noon.
Game 4: Barrow at Kenai, 4 p.m.

-Jeremy Peters

When watching girls’ flag football, it becomes quickly apparent that pulling flags instead of tackling is not the only way the sport’s rules differ from boys’ football.

Recently, Bartlett’s flag football coach Steve Stansbury was kind enough to explain some of the rules unique to flag football.

The technology revolution arrived Friday night at Anchorage Football Stadium, where for a change the play-by-play from the public address announcer didn't provide the only information.

Andrew Reynolds, who refereed East's 40-0 victory over Eagle River, wore a microphone that allowed him to announce penalties, both the nature of the infraction, the number of yards penalized and which down -- first, second, etc. -- would be played next.

East made sure Reynolds had plenty of opportunities for public speaking. The T-birds racked 13 penalties for 100 yards of back-stepping.

Here are the tiebreakers for the Cook Inlet Conference, with thanks to Denise Edwards of the Anchorage School District:

A Conference championship team shall be designated on the basis of the win-loss conference record. When two or more teams tie for the championship, co-champions will be designated. In the case of a tie for any place in the conference, seeding for playoff games will be decided based on the following tiebreaker rules. Each time a team is eliminated from a tie using the previous steps, the process shall be repeated from step 1 for the remaining tied games.

Here's news to use for football fans in the Valley and on the peninsula as we head into the final weekend of the regular season.

Houston football coach Norm Bouchard provided a rundown of the conference's playoff picture.

Soldotna and Kenai have clinched playoff spots (both are 4-0 in the league) and the winner of their showdown today will win the regular-season championship and home-field advantage for next week's playoffs.

Beyond that, Skyview (2-2), Homer (1-3) and Kodiak (1-3) and even Houston (0-4) remain in the hunt for the final two playoff berths.

If this wicked wind persists, word of warning for folks out running on local trails: Don't daydream, and keep your eyes peeled because branches, and trees, are falling all over the place and you don't want to take one off your melon.

Running on a side trail off the Chester Creek Trail between Lake Otis and Tkishla Park early this afternoon, a branch at least 5-6 feet long crashed down about 10-15 feet in front of me. I don't want to say that would have knocked me out, but the branch was heavy enough it actually bounced off the trail when it hit Earth.