Alaska girls earn AWG silver; Gold medal Northwest Territories finishes tourney unbeaten

Led by Houston High standout Grace Gillespie, the Team Alaska girls basketball team claimed the silver medal in Arctic Winter Games competition Friday evening at Wasilla High School.

Gillespie poured in a team-high 25 points, including 13 in the fourth quarter, but it was not enough to overcome a powerful Northwest Territories squad, which won 64-45 to remain unbeaten throughout the weeklong tournament and claim its first gold medal in the 54-year history of the Arctic Winter Games. Northwest Territories’ co-captain Saia Brown led all scorers with 27. Her 11 first-quarter points, including three 3-pointers, paced a 21-9 opening period run and set the tone for the rest of the game.

“It feels so good knowing we worked so hard for this,” Brown said in a postgame interview with Yellowknife’s Cabin Radio. “We fought all week against these other amazing teams, and we managed to come out on top and prove that all of our hard work, over months and months, it paid off. We’re all super proud of how we played.”

Northwest Territories coach Aaron Wells said his team’s success is based on a simple philosophy of good defense setting the table for good offense. That was the story across all four 10-minute periods of the game, when Wells’ squad used a huge inside advantage – along with solid execution and a sprinkling of patience – to dominate the paint at both ends of the court.

The team’s swarming defense forced a bunch of Alaska turnovers and denied second chance shots on nearly every Alaska possession. On offense, Northwest Territories battled to many points down low, and used size and hustle to earn second- and often third-chance scoring opportunities off offensive rebounds.

A veteran coach, Wells has led Northwest Territories’ girls team at past Arctic Winter and Canada Games. Some of the current team has been with him since ninth grade. So the possibility of a gold medal was real going into the 2024 Games.

“We have really good chemistry,” Wells said. “But I try not to put too much pressure on them.”

Team co-captain Abby Nevitt, who finished the game with 11 points, echoed Wells’ emphasis on chemistry after the game in an interview with Yellowknife’s Cabin Radio.

“We’ve been practicing together for so long. We’re almost the same team as last year,” she said. “We all had the same end goal, and we got it.” The host team never got on track. Despite a hard-fought team effort throughout, Alaska had limited answers for Northwest Territories’ offensive and defensive onslaught.

Coach Kylie Ibias, from Juneau, knew her team had a tough task ahead after losing to Northwest Territories 73-39 in an early round game on Wednesday.

“We knew we didn’t do great,” she said. “And we knew we needed to come out harder this time.”

But she credited her girls with a good team effort. “We came together well as a team,” Ibias said. “I really appreciate all the girls, and the parents for their support.” Alaska’s path to the gold medal game went through Team Yukon and a closely fought contest on Thursday. Behind Gillespie’s game-high 25 points, Alaska topped Yukon 60-57 to earn a trip to Friday’s gold medal matchup. Gillespie also finished the AWG competition as the tournament’s highest scorer, with 111 points. Teammate Krista Howland finished fourth with 70.

NWT’s Brown was second, with 100.