Region V basketball comes to Juneau

• News Home
• More from News of the North

Friday, March 6th, 2020 9:01pm

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Messenger
• Share on Messenger
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Whatsapp

Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - The Region V 2A/3A/4A Basketball Tournament begins Tuesday at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaat.at Kalé. The championship games take place Friday and Saturday.

The 2A field has five schools: Petersburg, Haines, Metlakatla, Wrangell and Craig. The 3A field includes Sitka and Mt. Edgecumbe and 4A field includes Juneau-Douglas, Thunder Mountain and Ketchikan.

The tournament doubles as the culminating event for Southeast's pep bands and cheer teams.

Metlakatla, Sitka and Juneau-Douglas are the top-seeded girls teams. 

Petersburg, Mt. Edgecumbe and Thunder Mountain are the top-seeded boys teams. 

The JDHS girls played their final regular-season games this weekend with the chance to hit 20 wins. The Lady Bears won 15 of their first 16 games this season, at one point winning 12 in a row. 

"The wins were nice as they came along but that wasn't what we were focusing on," JDHS coach Steve Potter said. "We were focusing early in the year on getting better and understanding our rotations better and I wouldn't say that we understand everything that we're trying to do but we're much better than we were at the beginning of the year."

The Crimson Bears' leading scorer, Kendyl Carson, is returning from an injury. She was held out of last weekend's games against Ketchikan. 

Potter says coaching someone like Carson makes everything easier.

"It's much easier to execute the things that you're trying to do when you have talented players and when you have talented players that understand basketball, it makes it even better," Potter said. "It's not like she tries to keep that knowledge to herself, she's sharing (it), she wants her teammates to be better. She wants the team to do well and that doesn't happen unless everyone gets better." 

The TMHS boys, the other No. 1-seed 4A team, boasts plenty of talent themselves. The senior class of Bryson Echiverri, Brady Carandang, Braden Jenkins, Kamron Falls, Cole Jensen and Stone Morgan have yet to experience the state tournament though. 

The Falcons last won regionals and went to the state tournament in 2014. Ketchikan won regionals in 2015 and last year. Juneau-Douglas won three straight regional tournaments between 2016-2018.

"It's been a long five years in terms of we haven't been Up North (for state) and both of them have and both of them have gotten state titles under their belt," TMHS coach John Blasco said. "We're definitely pushing and hoping we can make this opportunity ours."

Blasco said the intensity of the regionals is always high.

"It's the best tournament around. The environment is so fun but there's definitely a level of intensity that is unlike anything in the regular season," he said.

View the brackets here: 2A girls, 2A boys, 3A girls, 3A boys, 4A girls, 4A boys.

More from News of the North

• Team Juneau wins the Juneau Huskies Alumni game, 11-0

  Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - Friday night, saw Team Juneau go up against Team World for the Juneau Huskies Alumni Game.

• Murder charges against Caleb Irwin dismissed after his death

  Anchorage, Alaska (KINY) - The Anchorage District Attorney’s Office dismissed charges of murder in the second degree and manslaughter against Caleb Irwin. Irwin passed away from medical complications while awaiting trial. Irwin was charged with stabbing 27-year-old Briar Dickson to death in downtown Anchorage on June 3, 2022.

• No relief for beleaguered Southeast Alaska trollers as judge rejects request to keep fishery open

  Sitka, Alaska (Alaska Beacon) - Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said the state would appeal the denial immediately, but the clock is ticking before the scheduled July 1 start to the king salmon fishery

• Polynesian Voyaging Society to launch Moananuiākea voyage from Juneau, Alaska

  Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - Hōkūleʻa, the legendary voyaging canoe that revived the lost art of Polynesian voyaging and navigation and sparked a cultural renaissance in Hawaiʻi, is preparing to embark on a four-year circumnavigation of the Pacific.

• Daytime closure to Basin Road Trestle beginning May 31

  Juneau, Alaska (KINY) - The Basin Road Trestle Bridge will be closed to all traffic including pedestrians between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., seven days a week, from June 1 to June 11 due to structural repair work.

• Alaska Supreme Court finds former North Pole refinery owner liable for pollution

  Anchorage, Alaska (Alaska Beacon) - The former owner of a North Pole petroleum refinery is financially liable for groundwater pollution that has contaminated drinking-water wells around the refinery, the Alaska Supreme Court said in a ruling published Friday.

• Murkowski announces the Department of Defense Overdose Data Act

  Washington, D.C. (KINY) -  Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), alongside Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) and Representatives Seth Moulton (MA-06) and Nancy Mace (SC-01), led their colleagues in announcing the introduction of the Department of Defense Overdose Data (DOD) Act,  to address the impacts of the opioid epidemic among members of the U.S. military and their family.

• 42-year-old arrested in Ketchikan, charged with two counts of robbery, one count of assault and one count of violation of condtions of release

  Ketchikan, Alaska (KINY) - On May 28th, at approximately 3:47 PM, the Ketchikan Police Department responded to 800n Venetia Avenue to take a report of a male pointing a gun at people on Creek Street about 10 minutes earlier.

• “Iditarod on a boat” Race to Alaska returns June 5

  Port Townsend, WA (KINY)— Race to Alaska is back for year seven with 39 teams registered to depart from the Northwest Maritime Center on June 5. No motors or support allowed—the Race to Alaska (R2AK) is about the physical endurance, saltwater know-how, and the bulldog tenacity that it takes to navigate the 750 cold water miles from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska.

• State Supreme Court offers new insight into 2021 dispute that brought Alaska to shutdown’s brink

  Juneau, Alaska (Alaska Beacon) - No, the Alaska Attorney General may not sue the Legislature’s administrative wing to bypass a clause of the Alaska Constitution.

• Coast Guard suspended its search at sunset Monday for four missing individuals in the water near Sitka, Alaska.

  Juneau, Alaska (KINY) — The Coast Guard suspended its search at sunset Monday for four missing individuals in the water near Sitka, Alaska.

• Coast Guard searching for missing people near Sitka, Alaska

  Sitka, Alaska (KINY) - The Coast Guard is searching for four missing people who were last seen near Sitka, Sunday night.