Alaska 4A basketball tournament: Wasilla girls best Mountain City and Ketchikan boys take down top-seeded Grace Christian in overtime thrillers
Mar. 22—The second semifinal matchup of the 2025 Alaska 4A Girls State Basketball Tournament on Friday night felt like a title bout with how tightly contested it was from start to finish. It pitted a pair of Northern Lights conference rivals against each other for the third time this season and resulted in defending state champion Wasilla besting Mountain City Christian in a 59-54 classic that took an overtime period to decide.
"It was really about the kids," Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax said. "They stayed calm in the tough situations. We were down and then we would score. I had some kids hit some big shots. Mielee Merchant hit a big 3 for us, Savannah Kroon went to the basket a couple times and made them."
Neither team held more than a five-point advantage at any point in a game that featured well over a dozen ties and lead changes. While the Warriors struggled mightily from the charity stripe as a team throughout the night, they made the free throws that mattered most in final minute of overtime to propel them past the Lions. Wasilla senior Mylee Anderson made three of her last four attempts down the stretch.
"Mylee was struggling until the end when she finally took over," Hebert-Truax said. "She was trying to direct our team so she wasn't doing really the scoring but I thought she kept our team going the way it was supposed to go."
Even though she had the hardest time of anyone on the team when it came to free throws, senior Layla Hays was dominant in the post as she recorded her second double-double of the tournament with a team-leading 17 points and astounding 20 rebounds.
"My kids had some really good grit and they were just digging deep, went through the some toughness and came out the victors," Hebert-Truax said.
With the win, the Warriors are advancing to the state finals for the fourth year in a row where they will have to race their arch-rivals Colony on Saturday night in a rematch of last year's epic state title bout.
"We get to play Mountain City and Colony quite a few times because we're in the same conference and it's been a battle every time," Hebert-Truax said. "They still got one more job to do."
Colony 56, Juneau-Douglas 34
The Knights came and conquered once again in the first game of 4A semifinal action. After a back-and-forth opening minute of the game that saw them briefly trail the Crimson Bears, they went on a 6-0 lead to take the lead and never trailed again.
Colony just kept expanding its lead, nearly doubling up the score at halftime with a 31-17 lead and outpaced Juneau 25-17 the rest of the way to a commanding 22-point victory. The Knights only had a pair of players reach double figures in scoring and were led by senior Tonya Karpow, who recorded 15 of her game-high 19 points in the first half alone and she also finished with a game-high seven rebounds.
Boys
Ketchikan 46, Grace Christian 43 (OT)
The last game of the night turned out to be the most tightly contested and exhilarating of the the bunch and the second that required an extra period to determine a victor. As was the case in the first overtime game of the night, neither team led by more than five points at any point. The top-seeded Grizzlies narrowly led by a single possession after the first and second quarter, the Kings led by a single point at the end of the third and the two teams played to a 38-38 stalemate at the end of regulation.
Overtime was just as back and forth as the first four quarters with each team trading blow-for-blow. The final one was struck by Ketchikan on a mid-range jumper from senior Gage Massin to put the Kings up by two with 1.1 seconds left of the clock.
"It feels amazing having this opportunity to be here and especially to go into finals," he said. "It's just a dream come true for all of us."
While they'd tack on another point on a free throw from Edward Dela Cruz, it was Massin's clutch bucket that punched Ketchikan's ticket to the state finals for the first time since 2019.
"Finish off two (pointers), that's what coach wrote on the board as the main thing," he said. "I haven't been doing it all season but I knew how to finish off two right there."
This game marked the second meeting of these two teams this season and saw the Kings avenge a nearly double-digit defeat from early January.
"Knowing that we lost to Grace last time we played them and then coming out with this confidence and mentality just shows that we're a great team and we're more than a team, we're family," Massin said.
Fellow senior Marcus Stockhausen received Player of the Game honors after leading Ketchikan with 21 points that included going 5-of-10 from behind the arc. He also tied for the team lead in rebounds with seven. Leading scorer of the game honors went Grace Christian junior Bristol Tobin who recorded a game-high 23 points, eight rebounds and six steals.
East 48, Monroe Catholic 40
Even though the two-time defending champion Thunderbirds didn't blow out the Rams or win by double digits, they controlled the game and held the lead since opening it with a 5-0 run to record the first points of the semifinal bout.
East went on another 5-0 run to close out the second quarter and opened the third with a 13-2 stretch to go up by double figures, a lead they'd hold for most of the fourth quarter until the final minutes when Monroe tried to make a late push. Leading East in scoring on its way to advancing to fifth straight state finals was senior Jal Tharjiath with 14 points followed by senior captain Deng Deng who had 13 points. Exactly half of the Rams total points came from senior Jett McCullough who recorded a game-high 20 points before fouling out in the final minutes.
Alaska 4A State Girls Basketball Tournament
At Alaska Airlines Center
First round
Wednesday
Mountain City 51, North Pole 36
Wasilla 64, Dimond 28
Juneau-Douglas 49, Bartlett 44
Colony 54, West 46
Friday
Consolation
Dimond 57, North Pole 51
Bartlett 44, West 30
Semifinals
Colony 56, Juneau-Douglas 34
Wasilla 59, Mountain City Christian 54 (OT)
Saturday
Consolation
No. 4 Bartlett vs. No. 6 Dimond, 9:30 a.m. at Auxiliary Gym
No. 5 Juneau-Douglas vs. No. 2 Mountain City Christian, 9:30 a.m. at Main Court
Finals
No. 1 Colony vs. No. 3 Wasilla, 5:30 p.m. at Main Court
Alaska 4A State Boys Basketball Tournament
At Alaska Airlines Center
First round
Wednesday
Bettye Davis East 52, Palmer 35
Ketchikan 52, Dimond 48
Grace Christian 51, West 46
Monroe Catholic 50, Wasilla 38
Friday
Consolation
Wasilla 61, Palmer 46
West 58, Dimond 56
Semifinals
East 48, Monroe Catholic 40
Ketchikan 46, Grace Christian 43 (OT)
Saturday
Consolation
No. 3 Wasilla vs. No. 8 West,11 a.m. at Auxiliary Gym
No. 6 Monroe Catholic vs. No. 1 Grace Christian, 11 a.m. at Main Court
Finals
No. 2 Bettye Davis East vs. No. 5 Ketchikan, 7:30 p.m. at Main Court
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