High School Sports

Barrow’s Kimberly Wolgemuth sinks seven 3-pointers to send Whalers to 3A state title game

Playing in close games that go down to the wire is nothing new for the Barrow high school girls basketball team. The Whalers have been doing it all season, and the 3A state tournament hasn’t been any different.

“We’ve been in tight games all season long, and we’ve had to learn to play through it,” Barrow coach Derek Ahgeak said. “I give all my girls credit for not giving up and playing the full 32 minutes.”

After pulling away in the final minute of their quarterfinal victory over No. 6 Redington on Wednesday, Barrow found itself in another nail-biter against the second-seeded Grace Christian Grizzlies on Thursday. It was the long-range sharp-shooting of sophomore Kimberly Wolgemuth that proved to be the difference in the end.

“I was just trying to stay confident, and it really helped staying confident in my shot,” Wolgemuth said.

She propelled the Whalers to their first state title game appearance since 2016 by knocking down a staggering seven 3-pointers on her way to recording a game-high 24 points.

“If she is in her stance and we feed her the ball in her pocket, more than 80 percent it is going in,” Ahgeak said. “She has worked awfully hard on her shot and is always ready.”

Wolgemuth was pulling up and sinking field goals from behind the arc early and often. She hit nearly half of her 3-pointers in the first quarter as her trio of long balls in the first eight minutes helped Barrow build up an early lead that the Whalers would maintain for most of the game before a wild fourth quarter wound up deciding the game.

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“I was pretty scared in the fourth quarter, but I think what really helped us was that we kept our heads cool,” Wolgemuth said. “We knew we had to pick it up a bit and we did.”

[Sitka girls sink top seed Monroe Catholic with late free throws in 3A semis]

In a game that featured several back-to-back unanswered runs by both teams, the Whalers held a slim one-point lead heading into the final quarter at 39-38. The two teams would take turns leading for spurts until the final Wolgemuth bucket helped Barrow take the lead for good.

“In situations like that, we’re playing to win, we’re not playing not to lose, we’re attacking and that’s just what we do,” Ahgeak said. “If we go down, we’re going down with our best swing.”

With the Whalers nursing a five-point lead and in possession of the ball with less than half a minute left on the clock, Wolgemuth didn’t want her scorching-hot night to stop. She pulled up for one last long ball that some may have deemed ill-advised but hit nothing but net as the crowd erupted with cheers.

“If I’m on fire, I’m on fire, so I’m going to shoot it,” Wolgemuth said.

Barrow will face the fourth-seeded Sitka Wolves in the state title game on Saturday at the Alaska Airlines Center at 1 p.m. The two teams faced each other twice in the regular season and split, with each winning by eight points.

“We still have one game in front of us and that will be our toughest game,” Ahgeak said. “As you go up in state, the games get tougher. We understand that and will be ready to go.”

Josh Reed

Josh Reed is a sports reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He's a graduate of West High School and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

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