A familiar foe

PALMER — Toward the end of the Northern Lights Conference basketball tournament on Saturday at Palmer High School. Palmer head coach Greg Fullmer sat down with a few other people and the group tried to map out what the boys’ state tournament bracket might look like.

“We thought Lathrop would be the eight seed,” Fullmer said on Monday.

But as it turns out, it’s Fullmer’s Moose who own the eight seed, which pits them against a familiar foe — the Colony Knights — in the first round of the ASAA First National Bank 4A State Basketball Championships.

Palmer will face Colony March 20 at 5:10 p.m. at West Anchorage High School.

Once the final eight teams qualify for the state event, ASAA uses its Win Percentage Index to seed the teams. Fullmer thought since the Mid-Alaska Conference, which includes Lathrop, doesn’t have a season-ending tournament and the fact that the Malemutes have only six wins against 4A competition this season, the Moose would be ranked No. 7.

But once the final calculations were made with a formula that takes factors such as strength of schedule into account, the Malemutes were rated slightly higher than the Moose.

Slightly, meaning just more than a percent. Lathrop has an WPI of 48.44, while Palmer is at 47.40.

“(Lathrop) beat us by a point,” Fullmer said. “But it’s ok.”

And when he told his Palmer players that Colony is the first-round opponent, Fullmer said his team was ready to play.

“I told the kids and they’re excited,” Fullmer said. “They’re excited to be in the tournament.”

But Fullmer also stressed the Moose are not satisfied with just being in the tournament.

“The guys want to play them,” Fullmer said. “The guys are grateful to be going, but they don’t want to just be there. They want to make some noise and do some damage.”

The Knights are certainly no stranger to meeting a Valley rival in the state tournament.

“It happens to us and Wasilla, it seems like every year,” Colony head coach Jeff Bowker said. “Part of ya thinks it’d be nice to play someone who’s not a Region III team. However, with the current system, that’s going to happen.”

Last year, Colony — the 2007 state runner-up — met Wasilla in the title game.

After finishing the regular season untouched in NLC play, winning the conference title and taking a winning streak to 19 games in the process, the Knights are the top seed in the tournament.

Even though the Knights are No. 1 and Palmer is a No. 8 that Colony has already beat twice this season, Bowker knows his team can’t look past a Moose team that has advanced to the tourney with Cinderella style for the second straight year.

“No doubt, we won’t overlook Palmer. Palmer had us on the ropes the second to last game of the season,” Bowker said, referring to Colony’s 69-59 win over PHS on Feb. 29. “The beat Wasilla, they beat Kodiak. They’ve got good players over there.”

After losing to Kenai in the first round of the NLC tourney, Palmer rebounded to win three straight to advance to the state tourney. The Moose galloped past Skyview in the consolation quarterfinals on Friday, and recorded back-to-back wins over Kodiak and Wasilla on the final day of the tourney.

Kodiak and Wasilla had each swept Palmer during regular season play.

Fullmer said that simple fact is certainly motivation for the Moose as they prepare for the Knights, another team that swept Palmer during the regular season.

“The more you play someone, hopefully the better chance you have of figuring them out,” Fullmer said. “We’ve really got to work hard. We’re excited to play them.”

Colony cruised past Homer and Kodiak in the first two rounds of the NLC tourney, before fighting of a late Kenai charge in the championship game to win the title.

Bowker said being tested by the Kards in the title game certainly didn’t hurt.

“As you face different adverse situations through the season, it makes you stronger,” Bowker said.

Knights No. 2 in girls bracket

The Colony Knights earned the No. 2 seed in the girls’ bracket and will face the Lathrop Malemutes on March 20 at 11:20 a.m. at West High School.

In other first-round action, fifth-seeded Wasilla will face Juneau-Douglas in a rematch of the 2007 state title game at 1 p.m. on March 20, while sixth-seeded Palmer faces third-seeded South Anchorage at 6:50 p.m. on March 20.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.