Cinderlla Stars steal Warriors shot at title

ANCHORAGE — Cinderella passed her slipper off Friday night, as an upstart Wasilla team met its match in surprise Soldotna, which danced into its first-ever state final with a gritty 49-38 win in the semifinal round of the ASAA/First National Bank 4A State Basketball Championships at the Sullivan Arena.

“We just couldn’t finish,” Wasilla head coach Ryan Engebretsen said of his team, which was outscored 29-13 in the second half and blew an early double-digit lead.

Wasilla scored just five points in the fourth quarter, and went nearly seven minutes without a point during the final eight minutes of the game.

The Warriors were trying to return to the title game since taking the state championship in 2007, and entered the semifinals riding a wave of emotion following a first-round upset of top-seeded West Anchorage on Friday.

“We just came out in a little different mentality,” Engebretsen said. “As opposed to a desire to really take it from somebody yesterday, we were playing to just hold on. You can’t play to just hold on.”

The two teams had split their two previous match-ups, with the Stars taking a 53-46 win at Soldotna during the regular season and Wasilla winning 55-53 in the championship game of the Northern Lights Conference tournament in Kodiak two weeks ago.

Liam Andrus scored 14 points to lead Soldotna, while Dan Geller had 12 points and 10 rebounds.

“We out-worked them and out-hustled them,” Andrus said after helping his team hold Wasilla to just 26 percent shooting in the second half. “I think we wanted it more.”

SoHi’s unexpected run into the finals was the first by a Kenai Peninsula school since Kenai Central lost to East Anchorage in the 1981 title game.

“Our goal at the beginning of the year was to just get here,” Andrus said. “For a school of 500 kids to make the state championship game is unbelievable. I can’t even describe it.”

Adrese LaVern was the only Warrior in double figures with 10 points, while Tillerman Kroon and Braydon Kuiper each added seven.

Free throw shooting was a big difference in the game. Soldotna went 19-of-22 from the line compared to 0-for-4 for Wasilla.

Things looked good early on for the 2007 state champions. Kroon got the Warriors off on the right foot, slicing into the lane to score an acrobatic lay-up for the game’s first points. Kuiper followed that up with a three-pointer as the Warriors opened the game on a 5-0 run.

Wasilla made a concerted effort to pressure Soldotna’s guards and keep the Stars from getting loose on the outside as they did in their opening round win over Lathrop. The strategy worked, with both Kuiper and Adrese LaVern blocking Soldotna jump shot attempts to set the early tone as the Warriors built a 13-8 lead after the first.

“We’ve been driven defensively the last three weeks, which has been the difference in us,” Engebretsen said. “But when you work that hard defensively and can’t get anything to fall offensively…”

LaVern opened the second with back-to-back jumpers to push the lead to nine points, and after a deep ball from Cole Schierman, the Warriors fond themselves up by double digits midway through the quarter.

SoHi tried to use Wasilla’s aggressive man-to-man defense against the Warriors, pushing the ball inside and using pump fakes to get defenders into the air. The strategy worked, as the Stars were able to get to the foul line for a string of early free throws the cut the lead to six. The Warriors countered again with deep jumpers, including an unexpected three pointer from burly senior forward Tim Orr.

But the Stars hung tough, and when Geller picked up a pair of baskets in the paint near the end of the quarter, the Warriors found themselves clinging to a 25-20 halftime lead despite holding the Stars to just 22 percent shooting through two quarters of play — including an 0-for-7 showing from behind the three-point line.

The Stars opened the second half on a 6-0 run, keyed by two inside baskets by Andrus and a short jumper by Michael Bauder that gave SoHi its first lead of the evening at 26-25 midway through the third. The Warriors didn’t fold, putting together a 6-0 run of their own that included a highlight-reel lay-in by LaVern that put his team up 33-30 entering the fourth.

Soldotna opened the pivotal final quarter much as they did the third, putting together a 6-2 run, grabbing a 36-35 lead on a difficult lay-up by Matt Grubb that rolled twice around the rim before falling through the net. Andrus stretched the lead to three with a pair of free throws, and Blaine Carver pushed the lead to five when he banked in a runner with just 90 seconds left to go.

This time Wasilla had no answer, as Soldotna went 11-of-14 from the foul line in the final minutes to ice the game.

Soldotna 49, Wasilla 38

ASAA 4A state semifinals

Friday, Sullivan Arena

Wasilla 13-12-8-5—38

Soldotna 8-12-10-19—49

Wasilla (38) — Schierman 1 0-0 3, Kroon 3 0-2 7, Kuiper 3 0-0 7, LaVern 5

0-2 10, Orr 2 0-0 5, Pfeifer 2 0-0 4, Knowles 1 0-0 2; Totals: 17 0-4 38.

Soldotna (49) — Grubb 2 5-6 9, Carver 2 2-2 6, Aberkane 1 2-4 4, Gellar 3

6-6 12, Bauder 2 0-0 4, Andrus 5 4-4 14; Totals: 15 19-22 49.

Three-point field goals: Wasilla 4 (Schierman, Kroon, Kuiper, Orr 1),

Soldotna 0; Rebounds: Wasilla 33 (Pfeifer 9), Soldotna 36 (Gellar 10);

Total fouls: Wasilla 19, Soldotna 9.