High School Sports

Wasilla, Dimond teams to beat in 4A girls, boys state basketball tourneys

Heading into the next three days of March Madness Alaska, the same two schools hold the top two seeds in the Class 4A boys and girls state basketball tournaments.

The Wasilla boys and the defending champion Wasilla girls enter the tourney as the favorites with the No. 1 seeds. The Dimond boys and girls each hold the No. 2 seeds.

In the Class 3A brackets, it's the defending champion Barrow girls at No. 1, along with the Monroe Catholic boys, who won three straight championships from 2012-14.

Games begin Thursday morning at the Alaska Airlines Center.

"This is pretty much what you work all season for," said Wasilla girls coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax, who has piloted the Warriors to four state championships in the last six seasons. "They're pretty excited but at the same time gotta stay pretty loose and enjoy it and have fun."

Hebert-Truax said the Warriors enter the tournament a little banged up — one player is playing with a stress fracture in her foot and another is playing with a torn meniscus — but Wasilla is primed for another deep tournament run behind 5-foot-10 forward McKenna Dinkel.

Dinkel, a senior, led the Warriors with 13.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game this season.

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"McKenna Dinkel is always there day in and day our whether it's rebounding or scoring for me," Hebert-Truax said.

The most formidable player in the girls' tournament is Dimond's Alissa Pili, who averaged 25.1 points and 14.1 rebounds en route to Class 4A and Gatorade Player of the Year honors.

The Lynx are the No. 2 seed despite finishing the season No. 1 in the final Alaska Association of Basketball Coaches polls.

But neither Wasilla nor Dimond was invincible this season. The only team to beat both squads was Chugiak on its run to the title in Dimond's Lady Lynx Prep Shootout tournament in February.

"It gives us confidence but we also know (Wasilla and Dimond) are very tough teams and we have to bring our A game to compete with them," said Chugiak coach Ryan Hales, the 4A Coach of the Year. "It's not a, 'Oh we beat them' kind of attitude. We know it's going to be a battle."

On the boys side, No. 2 Dimond is looking for redemption after falling to Juneau in last year's championship. The Lynx have nine seniors and 10 returners from that team.

"That's a natural motivation, no doubt about it," Dimond coach Brad Lauwers said. "That's something that was on their mind, and we wanted to have a good season. I think we've done that and now there's one thing left and that's to take it all the way."

The Juneau boys barely made the tournament as a No. 6 seed. Juneau coach Robert Casperson said the Crimson Bears needed to win three straight loser's bracket games in their region tournament to even qualify for state.

"We don't mind being the darkhorse, or long-shot," Casperson said by email. "We know about the success that a lot of the other teams in the state tournament have had this season as we struggled to find our way. However, the boys on this team have come together over the past (six) weeks and they are playing really well as a group."

Like Dimond in the 4A tourney, the Grace Christian boys are looking to get back to the championship game in the 3A tournament. The Grizzlies fell to back-to-back champion Barrow in last year's title game.

Grace Christian is led by 3A Player of the Year, Tobin Karlberg, who shot 62 percent from the field and 48 percent from the 3-point line this season.

"Tobin has always lived in the gym, but after last season he put in a tremendous off-season working on his strength and his fundamentals," Grace Christian coach Jason Boerger said by email. "Tobin is a serious student of the game of basketball and I think it is a combination of his high basketball IQ and his competitive desire that fuels his game."

On the girls side, Barrow is trying for consecutive 3A titles under second-year coach Chad Bunselmeier.

Bunselmeier led the Whalers to a championship in his first season after taking over for former coach Roland Hepa. He said this year's team enters the tournament with a lot more confidence than it did last year.

"Last year I think we went into the tournament hoping to win the first game … This year the expectation s are very high," Bunselmeier said.

Thursday's  games

Alaska Airlines Center

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Class 3A

Girls
11 a.m. – Valdez vs. Sitka
12:30 p.m. – Galena vs. ACS
6:30 p.m. – Nikiski vs. Grace Christian
8 p.m. – Barrow vs. Bethel

Boys
8 a.m. – Monroe vs. Sitka
9:30 a.m. – Delta vs. Barrow
3:30 p.m. — Valdez vs. ACS
5 p.m. – Grace Christian vs. Bethel

Class 4A

Girls
8 a.m. – Colony vs. Lathrop
9:30 a.m. – Wasilla vs. Ketchikan
3:30 p.m. — Juneau vs. Dimond
5 p.m. – East vs. Chugiak

Boys
11 a.m. – Bartlett vs Ketchikan
12:30 p.m. – Wasilla vs. Kodiak
6:30 p.m. – East vs. Juneau
8 p.m. – West Valley vs. Dimond

Stephan Wiebe

Stephan Wiebe writes about all things Alaska sports.

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