High School Sports

Grace Christian boys, ACS girls grab spots in 3A championship games

The Grace Christian boys and the Anchorage Christian girls will play for state basketball championships Saturday after each knocked off the defending champions from Barrow in Friday's Class 3A semifinals at the Alaska Airlines Center.

Grace Christian beat two-time defending champion Barrow boys 42-36 and will play for the title at 3:15 p.m. against Monroe, a 42-40 winner over Valdez.

ACS upset the Barrow girls 53-50 and will take on Sitka, a 35-15 winner over Nikiski, in the 1:15 p.m. title match.

Boys

Grace Christian will play in the boys championship game for the third time in four seasons.

And while the Grizzlies have made frequent championship game appearances in the last four seasons, they haven't won a state title since they captured back-to-back crowns in 2000 and 2001.

Grace Christian's Tobin Karlberg hit 9 of 10 free throws on his way to a game-high 19 points. The Grizzlies outscored Barrow 14-7 in the fourth quarter to secure the win.

"It just all came down to free throws and just being mentally tough," Karlberg said. "Despite anything that was going on in the crowd, we just had to stay focused, remain confident, because we've played these guys three other times already this season. We knew that we had beat them before, we knew that we could beat them, so it just came down to getting it done down the stretch."

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During the regular season, Barrow was 2-1 against Grace. The Grizzlies took a neutral-court win at the Dimond Lynx Prep Shootout, and the Whalers beat Grace in Barrow and at Grace Christian. In their homecourt loss, the Grizzlies squandered a 13-point lead, Karlberg said.

"So we kinda had a bad taste in our mouths," he said. "Coming into this game we really wanted to get them back."

Brogan Nieder chipped in 15 points for Grace, and both he and Karlberg had three steals.

Barrow was led by freshman Anthony Fruean's 15 points. Travis Adam dished four assists but was limited to seven points.

The semifinal game was a rematch of last year's state championship game, where Barrow claimed a narrow 33-31 win. Saturday's title game will be a rematch of the 2014 title game, which Monroe won 58-47.

In its win over Valdez on Friday, Monroe didn't surrender a point in the first quarter. Valdez trailed 31-22 after three quarters but made things close by outscoring the Rams 18-11 in the final eight minutes.

Divon Davis led Monroe with 10 points, six rebounds and five steals. Ryan Brandley added 11 points and Isaac Garcia hit three triples for nine points.

Seth Auble of Valdez topped all scorers with 18 points on 7 of 13 shooting. Bennet Hinkle collected eight rebounds for the Buccaneers.

In Friday's earlier boys action, ACS stayed alive with a 69-45 rout of Sitka and Bethel survived with a 57-44 win over Delta.

Girls

The championship game will feature two recent champions — 2015 champ Sitka and 2014 champ ACS.

ACS surprised Barrow thanks to 20 points, five assists and five steals from Destiny Reimers and a double-double from Jordan Todd.

Todd supplied 10 points and 10 rebounds and Chaunice Carr added 13 points and six rebounds for the Lions.

ACS took advantage of 25 Barrow turnovers and owned a 15-8 edge at the foul line.

Barrow's Milya Wright totaled 12 points, five rebounds and five steals and Alaina Wolgemuth drained three triples on her way to 11 points.

Sitka survived a low-scoring affair with Nikiski thanks to Tatum Bayne's 19 points and 13 rebounds. Zoe Krupa added 10 points.

The Wolves jumped to a 19-3 lead in the first quarter but managed 16 points the rest of the way. Nikiski was held to five first-half points and five points in each of the final two quarters.

In loser-out game on Friday, Grace Christian tripped Valdez 43-23 and Bethel stopped Galena 58-34.

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Friday’s scores

Boys

Grace Christian 42, Barrow 36 (semifinal)
Monroe 42, Valdez 40 (semifinal)
ACS 69, Sitka 45 (loser out)
Bethel 57, Delta 44 (loser out)

Girls

ACS 53, Barrow 50 (semifinal)

Sitka 35, Nikiski 15 (semifinal)

Grace Christian 43, Valdez 23 (loser out)

Bethel 58, Galena 34 (loser out)

Saturday's games

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Boys

8:30 a.m. — Valdez vs. Barrow, 3rd place (Alaska Airlines Center)
9:30 a.m. — ACS vs. bethel, 4th place (Wells Fargo Sports Complex)
3:15 p.m. — Grace Christian vs. Monroe, championship (Alaska Airlines Center)

Girls

8 a.m. — Grace vs. Bethel, 4th place (Wells Fargo Sports Complex)

10 a.m. — Barrow vs. Nikiski, 3rd place (Alaska Airlines Center)

1:15 p.m. — ACS vs. Sitka, championship (Alaska Airlines Center)

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