The No. 1 seed West Valley High School boys are a game closer to claiming the ASAA State Basketball Tournament championship following their 60-37 win over Juneau Douglas on Wednesday.
“I’m happy with our performance,” Wolfpack coach Colten Growden said after the game. “We came out, started with an 11-0 run, put the foot on the gas pedal, and didn’t really let up for the full first half.”
The next step is an all-Fairbanks affair as West Valley will face Monroe Catholic on Friday at 6:15 p.m. in the state semifinals. The Rams held off Colony 45-30 in their quarterfinal on Wednesday evening.
Wolfpack senior Malachi Bradley and the morning’s top scorer, Stewart Erhart (who also took home the Player of the Game award), put up all but two of the team’s 17 points in the first quarter. The team’s penchant for playing defense, or “offense-offense” as Growden terms it, resulted in continually forcing turnovers as the Crimson Bears managed just five points in the opening quarter.
West Valley did not let up from there, going on an 8-0 run in the second period to extend its lead to 32-14 going into the half.
Returning from the break, the Wolfpack seemed to fight off fatigue more than Juneau Douglas, which allowed the Crimson Bears to go on a 6-0 run to bring the deficit under 15 points. But West Valley caught its second wind in the final quarter to secure the win and a spot in the state semifinals.
So, what does a coach whose top-seeded team wins a state quarterfinal game by 23 points find less-than-satisfactory?
“Our free-throw percentage was not good,” Growden said. “We went 10 for 18 in the first half, two for two in the second,” attributing some of the difficulty to playing on standing baskets on the University of Alaska Anchorage court. Without a wall that high school teams are used to shooting against, depth perception can be a struggle.
Top scorers for the Wolf Pack were Erhart with 22 points, Bradley with 15, and senior Eliyah Dominique with 10 points.
Leading Juneau Douglas were Sean Oliver with 12 points, Orion Dybdahl with 11 points, and Joseph Aline with seven.
Monroe Catholic 45, Colony 30: If you make it to the Class 4A state tournament, you have to shoot the ball once you get there. Such was the lesson Monroe Catholic eventually learned in an opening-round win over the Colony Knights at the Alaska Airlines Center on Wednesday night.
Shaking off the nerves early on and being willing to take a chance at putting the ball in the basket was tough for the Rams, and for their opponents from Colony, early on as 5 minutes and 47 seconds into their center the score was just 2-2.
The Rams’ Jett McCullogh hit a 3-pointer and Armani Smith dished the ball to Trevor Mahler for a layup to close out the quarter with a 7-2 lead, but it wasn’t until 1:34 into the next quarter that Monroe Catholic seemed to finally get the message about shooting the ball.
That was when coach Frank Ostanik used his outside voice to challenge his best inside player.
“You’re 2 feet from the rim… why are you passing it?” he asked the 6-foot-6 Mahler.
From there, the Rams went on a 10-0 run to close out the half up 17-4. And whereas they had just two points deep into the first quarter, Mahler put up Monroe Catholic’s first basket of the third quarter just 17 seconds into the half with a short hook shot.
“We haven’t ever been in this event,” Ostanik said. “We can tell them ‘Don’t be nervous,” for two weeks, but until they’ve experienced it, there’s no way for them to know how it feels.”
“There were definitely nerves being out there,” agreed Mahler, who was named player of the game. “But after that first timeout I felt like we settled down and were able to play our normal game.”
The Knights didn’t fade away in the final period, cutting a 31-18 lead down to 34-27 with 3:35 to play when Blake Dinkal hit a short jumper.
But Monroe Catholic did what it needed to down the stretch, hitting six of 10 free-throw attempts and controlling the defensive boards to limit Colony to one shot attempt on four possessions in a key 1 minute, 35 second span down the stretch.
“We’re not going to blow anybody out here by 20,” Ostanik noted. “But we’re a school of 100 kids and we’re getting ready to play the most talented team in the state in the state semifinals, so that’s pretty special.”
McCullough finished with 11 points for Monroe Catholic, while Mahler had a double-double of 10 points and 10 boards. Jack Mavencamp added nine points and nine rebounds.
Blake Dinkel was Colony’s top scorer with 11 points.
Grace Christian 68, Delta 36: Artur Novatarsky scored nine points for Delta as the Huskies dropped into the consolation bracket with an opening day loss to top-seed Grace Christian in ASAA State Tournament Class 3A play.
The Anchorage-based Grizzlies hit the court running, putting up 24 points in the first quarter with cousins Sloan and Luke Lentfer leading the way. They ultimately tripped the running-clock protocol after leading by 30 in the final quarter.
A pair of 3-pointers by junior Skylar Wilson were among the Huskies’ highlights. While unable to do much on the scoreboard, the Huskies’ defense proved solid with several forced turnovers senior L.J. Clark dominating the boards.
Even with the running clock. Delta rallied in the final quarter with an 8-0 run as part of a 13-point period.
Top scorers for the Grizzlies were Sloan Lentfer with 19 points, Kellan Jedlicka with 17 points, and Luke Lentfer with 14.
Skylar Lanoah-Wilson added six points and Donovan Koba had five for the Huskies, who will face Kenai Central in the consolation round Thursday at 10:30 a.m.
