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FAIRBANKS — Head coach Pat Romans watched his Lathrop Malemutes practice on a sunny Thursday afternoon at Lathrop High School, just six days after they played one of their best football games of the season but fell one point short.

“We had the opportunity to win,” Romans said about last Saturday’s 14-13 loss to the Dimond Lynx in Anchorage. “The kids never gave up and it was a good team ... We’ve got great kids, they don’t lose heart. They were coming off a 56-6 defeat to Colony (on Aug. 22 at Lathrop) and they gave a top-3 team in Anchorage a run for its money.”

In a Railbelt Conference game at 4 p.m. Saturday, Lathrop visits a Wasilla team which runs the ball well. Chris Crane, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound senior, rushed 26 times for a game-high 122 yards and a 7-yard touchdown for the Warriors in last Saturday’s 10-9 loss at West Valley.

“We’ve seen tapes of their last three games,” Romans said, “and they’re huge.”

Lathrop, 0-2 conference and 1-3 overall, recently added a dimension to its offense — using two quarterbacks in a game. The platooning allows the Malemutes to capitalize on senior Denzel Crump’s running ability and fellow senior Billy Hoeffel’s throwing skills.

“I just think we need a quicker look at getting the ball down field,” Romans said. “Denzel’s got good foot speed and he likes to run the ball, and Billy’s a mechanical quarterback and a good drop-back passer with a great arm.”

Two Interior teams are involved in games tonight, as the Eielson Ravens return to Greatland Conference play at 6 p.m. against the Delta Junction Huskies at Buck Nystrom Field on Eielson Air Force Base, and the West Valley Wolfpack face the Bartlett Golden Bears in a nonconference contest at 7 p.m. at Chugiak Stadium.

Delta Junction and West Valley each won its first games of the season last weekend.

The Huskies (1-2, 1-3) edged the winless Seward Seahawks 14-10 Saturday in Seward, and head coach Gregg Wojcik noticed upbeat moods in this week’s practices at Delta Junction High School.

That win was a shot in the arm for our team as far as building confidence,’’ Wojcik said by telephone Thursday.

Wojcik knows, too, that his Huskies, with 12 freshmen among 25 players, will be underdogs against an Eielson squad looking to bounce back from a 61-12 nonconference home loss to the North Pole Patriots last Friday.

“I can guarantee you that our kids are going to come out fighting,” said Wojcik, “but I know they’ve (Eielson) lost their last two games and they’re going to be hungry. We’ve watched film of them, and they’ve got a well-rounded team. They can pass, they can run and their quarterback can run the option — we have our hands full.

“For us to win this game, the bottom line is we have to make big plays and we have to play mistake-free ball.”

A victory by the Ravens (2-1, 2-2) would put Eielson in contention for a sixth straight playoff berth since joining the Greatland in 2003.

Like Wojcik, West Valley head coach Ben Johnson noticed an inspired atmosphere in his team’s practices this week following the Wolfpack ending a 12-game losing streak that went back to the 2006 season.

“It’s been real good, and we’ve been trying to fine tune even more on what’s worked for us,” Johnson said. “The boys are feeling more confident in the system after having got that win.”

West Valley meets another good running team tonight, as Bartlett sophomore Jamal Hale leads the Cook Inlet Conference, and ranks seventh in the state, with 405 yards and seven touchdowns from 59 carries.

“That’s been one of our emphasis this week — their wing-T offense and stopping a little bit more of their speed game,” Johnson said.

On Saturday, the North Pole Patriots, 4-0 and ranked third among the state’s large schools in the Alaska Sports Broadcasting Network Poll, host the West Anchorage Eagles in a nonconference clash at 2 p.m., and the Monroe Catholic Rams visit Seward at 1 p.m. Saturday, hoping to rebound from a 46-0 loss to the Nikiski Bulldogs last Saturday at Kiwanis Field.

Patriots senior Dane Ebanez rushed 12 times for 235 yards and three touchdowns against Eielson, moving into third place among the state’s leading runners (37 carries, 501 yards and three TD’s for the season). Last Friday’s domination also allowed North Pole head coach Richard Henert an opportunity to work on other parts of the Patriots attack.

“We needed to take our offensive execution to the next level, polish our passing game and open up our playbook,” Henert said. “We didn’t get a chance to do that in other games.”

That extra work could come in handy for a 2-2 Eagles squad that’s coming off a 21-6 loss last Saturday to top-ranked South Anchorage.

“Like usual, they’ve got big, athletic kids and they can play some good football,’’ Henert said. “They didn’t quite have the consistency and execution in their losses, but they’ve been improving each week.”

The Eagles and Patriots don’t play often, but their recent battles have been competitive. North Pole defeated West Anchorage in the 2004 large schools state championship game and the Eagles won 49-20 in a regular-season game at Patriot Pride Field in September 2005.

“I told my kids that it’s a hostile environment,” Eagles coach Bob Garman said Thursday from Anchorage. “They’ll show pretty good hospitality to us, but on the field, they’re going to come after us.

“Our defense has been fine but hopefully, we’ll get our offense going. I anticipate a real fun game.”

At Cathy Parker Field in Barrow on Saturday, the Whalers can make history with a victory over the Homer Mariners in a 2 p.m. nonconference game. Barrow, ranked second among the state’s small schools, can go to 5-0 for the first time in only its third year of football.

Head coach Mark Voss’ team, though, isn’t overlooking a 1-3 Homer squad that lost 54-0 last week to the Soldotna Stars, the state’s top-ranked small schools team.

“Homer’s got a winning tradition behind them, they’ve always been a powerhouse,” Voss said from Barrow. “You can never take a team like Homer lightly. We’ve been real serious about them this week.’’

Even while practicing in 30-degree weather on Wednesday and Thursday.

“It was tough, but we were able to get some pretty good work done,’’ Voss said. “We were able iron out some of the things we did wrong against Valdez.”

Barrow downed the Valdez Buccaneers 28-20 in a Greatland game last Saturday in Barrow.