Career day

JEREMIAH BARTZ/ Frontiersman sports editor

CHUGIAK - Before Saturday, March 11, Ellen Roth's career scoring high was 17 points. And that was a feat she accomplished just the day before.

But on Saturday, as Roth and the Wasilla Lake Christian School girls' basketball squad faced Wings Christian Academy in the semifinal round of the Alaska Christian School Athletic Association state basketball tournament, something clicked. The shots fell, and things just went right. Roth scored a tournament-high 34 points, and hit the game-winning, buzzer-beating basket in a 46-45 win over Wings.

Following the tourney, Roth was named the event's most valuable player.

With five seconds remaining in the game, and Wasilla Lake Christian trailing by a point, Roth's coach Laura Young called a timeout and set up a play to get the ball to her hot-handed junior post.

With the seconds ticking off the clock, Roth took a pass from a teammate and put up a shot from just inside the three-point line. And with only two seconds remaining, it was good. Roth had won the game for her Wasilla Lake Christian squad. And most important to her, she said, was an opportunity for her squad to play another game.

Roth said she was surprised when she figured out after the game that she had scored 34 of her team's 46 points.

&#8220I didn't know that I had that many,” she said. &#8220I was going for 20. I figured I had about 25 points after the game.”

Roth said once she hit about 15 points she was kind of on auto-pilot, and things were just working well.

The forward does a lot of her offensive damage in the post, but also has the ability to drain the shot from the outside. Roth hit four three-pointers in the game.

With her 34-point effort, Roth was able to help lead her team to a second-place finish in the state tournament in Wasilla Lake Christian's first season with a girls basketball squad. Last year WCS had just a boys team, but that didn't keep Roth off the court. She played on the boys

squad.

Roth said she is on a young team, two of the six players had not taken the court prior to this season, but a second-place finish has already fueled the squad's enthusiasm for next season.

Playing basketball for a small school has its advantages, Roth said.

&#8220We get a lot of playing time, and there is more one-on-one with the coaches,” she said.

Wasilla Lake Christian School plays other Christian schools from around the state, such as Soldotna's Wings Academy. Its biggest rival is probably another Mat-Su school, Valley Christian. Roth said WCS has also traveled to Talkeetna to play Susitna Valley High School, and hosted St. Paul High

School.