4A state basketball tournament starts Thursday in Anchorage

WASILLA — Four Valley teams qualified for the ASAA/First National Bank State Basketball Championships, and three of the squads will hit the court during the opening hours of the 4A state tournament Thursday at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage.

Wasilla opens play in the boys’ tournament, facing East Anchorage at 8 a.m. Colony follows with a quarterfinal match against West Anchorage. On the girls’ side, Colony meets West Valley at 11 a.m. and Wasilla caps the first day of the tournament with a game against Chugiak at 8 p.m.

The Wasilla boys are the highest seeded team among the Valley’s four qualifiers. The Warriors earned the second seed in the tournament after winning their second straight Northern Lights Conference title. Wasilla finished 20-3 overall and 9-1 in NLC play. Wasilla meets an East Anchorage squad that scored the final spot in the tournament. East, which finished third in the Cook Inlet Conference, got an at-large bid and is seeded seventh in the tourney. East finished 15-11 during the regular season.

Colony, the NLC runner-up in the No. 3 seed, and faces sixth-seeded West, which placed fourth in the CIC. West was 17-8 during the regular season.

Wasilla, East, Colony and West share the bottom side of the bracket.

The top side features defending champion Dimond, the No. 1 seed. Dimond, 26-1 overall this year, plays Southeast champion Juneau-Douglas at 5 p.m. Mid-Alaska Conference champion West Valley, the No. 4 seed, is also on the top side of the bracket and will face fifth-seeded Chugiak, the CIC runner-up, at 3:30 p.m.

Two-time defending state champion Wasilla is the No. 3 seed in the 4A girls’ tournament. The Warriors, who earned their fourth straight NLC title, meets Chugiak, which was third in the CIC. Wasilla finished the regular season 17-4, Chugiak was 20-8.

NLC runner-up Colony, the fourth seed, plays fifth-seeded West Valley, the MAC champion.

CIC runner-up East and Southeast champion Ketchikan are also on the bottom side of the bracket with Wasilla and Chugiak. Ketchikan is actually the No. 6 seed according to ASAA’s Winning Percentage Index, the formula ASAA uses to seed its 3A and 4A tournaments and select its at-large berths. According to the WPI, Wasilla was supposed to play Ketchikan, and East was due to meet Chugiak. The bottom side of the bracket was changed by ASAA officials.

In addition to Colony and West Valley, the top side of the bracket also includes top-seeded Dimond, which has finished as the runner-up in each of the last two years. Dimond, 22-0 this season, plays eighth-seeded West Anchorage, which earned the final spot in the tourney.

The tournament continues through Saturday. See frontiersman.com/sports for coverage.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.