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Scott McAfee enjoyed his production operator’s job at Prudhoe Bay, and the pay was excellent for a young adult from North Pole.

He also yearned to build a career as a professional mixed martial arts fighter.

A year ago, he decided he wanted to ground and pound an opponent in a ring rather than help pull oil out of the ground.

“It was a great job and I was making a lot of money, but it came to a point that one of them had to give,’’ McAfee, 25, said on Tuesday in a telephone interview before he returned to Sacramento, Calif., where he trains with Uriah Faber, a seven-time Ultimate Fighting Championship titlist in the 145-pound class.

“It was either follow my dream, or take the secure path,’’ McAfee said. “I went out on a gamble, and so far, it’s turned out good and it turned out to be the right thing.’’

McAfee first fought in 2005 on an Alaska Fighting Championship card at Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

“It’s you against one other person and you’re not relying on a team for results,’’ McAfee said of a reason he’s a mixed martial arts fighter. “It’s all on you, and what you put into it is what you get out of it.’’

McAfee’s full-time mixed martial arts gamble was spurred by an event in the gambling Mecca of Las Vegas in August 2007. He lost to Marcus Hicks in a 155-pound bout on a World Extreme Cagefighting card at the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino.

The defeat made him realize he’d have to make mixed martial arts a full-time occupation. No more fighting on a card in the Lower 48 and then hopping on a plane back home to Alaska to return to work at Prudhoe.

He met Faber after the loss to Hicks and started training full-time with him and his Team Alpha Male fighters in Sacramento. McAfee and other Alpha Male fighters also live in a house owned by Faber.

“Ever since I started training with him, my ground game has gone through the roof,’’ said McAfee, who graduated from North Pole High School in 2002 and earned an associate degree in applied science from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2004.

“As far as wrestling and submissions (holds), that’s really, really exploded,’’ McAfee said. “The main thing is I’ve always had the striking background from boxing. Moving down there and training has made me much more well-rounded.’’

The loss to Hicks was his first of his career, but it made him realize that in the MMA business, one loss can be one too many. Training with Faber also helped lead him to a successful spot on the Palace Fighting Championship 11 card on Nov. 20 in Lemoore, Calif.

“The PFC was a chance for me to get back on the winning side,’’ McAfee, the owner of a 7-1-0 career record, said. “One loss isn’t a lot, but when you start putting together two to three in a row, that can put the nail in the coffin.’’

Rather than hammering nails in a coffin, McAfee pounded punches against a knockout artist in the PFC card at the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino in the central California city of Lemoore.

McAfee was scheduled to face Gabe “Godzilla’’ Ruediger, who appeared on the fifth season of the Spike reality series, “The Ultimate Fighter.” Ruediger withdrew from the PFC card because of an injury and he was replaced by 6-foot-2 Jason Drake, who was on a four-fight knockout streak.

“He was incredibly tall for the weight class, too,’’ McAfee said. “He had quite the reach and I thought he could probably be more dangerous (than Ruediger). The other guy was much better at submissions, but this guy was good at submissions and good at kickboxing.’’

McAfee proved to be the better puncher between them, winning the bout by a technical knockout in 2 minutes, 2 seconds into the first round.

McAfee had taken down the 30-year-old from Porterville, Calif., and was punching on him before Drake kicked him to create space and get back on his feet.

The kick made McAfee take a couple of steps back before Drake and he feverishly exchanged punches.

McAfee then floored Drake with a left hook and followed with three right-handed punches to the downed Drake before the referee halted the fight.

“That was my most important fight to date,’’ McAfee said. “Everything I had trained for went perfect, and I had trained really hard.”

Christian Printup, president of Palace Fighting Championship and the 2006 North American Boxing Association Promoter of the Year for Female Boxing, spoke with McAfee after the fight about appearing on a PFC card in February or May in the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino, which features a 3,000-seat arena.

In the meantime, McAfee continues to train and the money he earned from defeating Drake is enough to live on until he steps in a ring again to live his dream.

CAMPUS TRAILS: North Pole graduate and junior guard Kelsy McIntosh scored a game-high 24 points, with 12 of them from 3-point range, in Tuesday’s 74-40 rout of Post University in a Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference women’s basketball game in Waterbury, Conn. ... Nebraska senior forward Kelsey Griffin, a Chugiak graduate and a two-time, first-team All-Big 12 Conference selection, is scheduled to undergo surgery today on her injured left ankle and will miss the entire 2008-09 season. Griffin, who is scheduled to play next season, injured the ankle on Aug. 28 and had not practiced or played for the Cornhuskers in 14 weeks.

•Old Dominion (Va.) junior wrestler Kaylen Baxter, a West Valley graduate, lost a pair of 157-pound matches in the Journeyman/Brute Northeast Duals on Saturday in Troy, N.Y. He was defeated 2-1 by Missouri’s Michael Chandler and 6-0 by Matt Moley of Bloomsburg (Pa.).

•North Dakota sophomore center and South Anchorage grad Evan Trupp had a goal and three assists in a 7-3 win over 12th-ranked Cornell in the Subway Hockey Classic on Friday in Grand Forks, N.D. ... Sophomore left wing Hunter Bishop of Fairbanks had an assist each night for host Ohio State in a Central Collegiate Hockey Association sweep of Nebraska-Omaha (4-3 win Friday and 3-2 win Saturday) ... Milwaukee School of Engineering senior center Mike Marquette of Fairbanks and Wisconsin-Superior senior right wing Seth Reda of Palmer each had an assist in Saturday’s 3-3 tie at Wisconsin-Superior.

PRO NOTES: Utah Jazz forward Carlos Boozer, a Juneau-Douglas graduate, has been sidelined for the National Basketball Association team since Nov. 20 because of a strained left quadriceps tendon ... Rookie guard and Bartlett grad Mario Chalmers is second for the Miami Heat in assists (4.5 per game) and fourth in scoring (8.9 points per game) through 18 games.

Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586 or dmartin@newsminer.com