The pressure cooker known as playoff football is about to receive a healthy dose of intensity. Three Kenai Peninsula teams have qualified for the 2012 football playoffs and look to find glory on the other side.

The Soldotna Stars and Homer Mariners finished first and second, respectively, in the Northern Lights Conference. The Stars enter the medium-schools playoffs with a 5-0 conference record and 7-1 overall, while the Mariners begin the postseason 4-1 in the conference and 5-2 overall.

The central Kenai Peninsula has six more residents who can call themselves hall-of-famers.

The Valley City State (N.D.) college hall of fame inducted a large class of former alumni athletes Friday, and the school’s 1996 football team is one of the new members.

Six of those football players on that year’s team graduated from either Soldotna, Skyview or Kenai Central, and two of them will be receiving individual honors in the ceremony.

The Nikiski football team took a convincing 57-0 victory over Greatland Conference rival Barrow amidst a snowstorm Friday evening in Nikiski, and locked up home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Nikiski ended the regular season with a 4-1 conference record and 6-2 overall, and will be seeded second in the small-schools playoffs, which begin next week.

Friday, the Bulldogs got off to a quick start, as senior running back Stephen Hartley scored on the opening kickoff, running 77 yards to put Nikiski up by eight after a successful two-point conversion.

The final week of the prep football regular season has arrived, with the playoff hopes of many teams still alive.

Among the Northern Lights Conference teams that hold postseason hopes in the medium-schools division, only the Soldotna Stars and Homer Mariners have guaranteed spots. Kodiak also controls its destiny, and can get the third and final playoff spot with a victory over Skyview. A Bears loss to the Panthers opens the door for Kenai Central to make the playoffs with a victory over Soldotna.