Before last weekend’s Southcentral Conference tournament in Seward, the Skyview volleyball team spent some of their off time together watching the 2007 film, “The Final Season”.

The movie depicts a high school baseball team in Iowa that holds a strong winning tradition, but is faced with the reality of playing one last year before the school merges with another school in the district.

Perhaps the Panthers can use it as inspiration to capture a state crown in Skyview’s final year.

Soldotna shook off the memories of last week’s match with Kenai to easily advance to the quarterfinal round of the Northern Lights Conference volleyball tournament at Soldotna High School on Thursday, sweeping the Kardinals with games of 25-7, 25-20 and 25-7.

Later in the day, however, Soldotna was swept into the loser’s bracket by Palmer, the second seed, with game scores of 25-17, 26-24 and 25-19. Soldotna will face Wasilla today at 1 p.m., while Kenai takes on Colony at 11 a.m.

Although it was an endowment game and did not count toward the North Star Conference standings, the Kenai Central hockey team had to have felt good leaving the ice at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex on Tuesday night after a 5-2 win over Homer.

For a team that had a 2-7-1 conference record in 2012 and was denied a state bid by Homer in last year’s regional tournament, Kenai started strong and held tough over the Mariners to unofficially get their season underway.

“It’s always good to get a win and get the bugs and jitters shaken out,” said Kenai coach Pete Iverson.

The Soldotna swimming and diving squads took the top honors among Peninsula schools Saturday at the Region III swimming and diving championships at Kenai High School. The Soldotna boys took second with 57 points (30 behind Kodiak), and the Soldotna girls placed third with 58 points, only three behind runner-up Palmer, and 24 behind Kodiak.

The Kodiak teams cruised to the team titles with a combined total of 179 points — 82 for the girls and 97 for the boys. Kodiak girls have now won seven straight, and the boys five straight — including nine out of the past 11.