Colony girls rally to beat Wasilla, earn top seed in NLC tourney

The Colony Knights girls basketball team rallied, won and locked up the top seed in upcoming Northern Lights Conference Championships, which start Thursday at Soldotna High School.

Colony used a late push to get past rival Wasilla 50-48 Friday night at Wasilla High School. With the win, the Knights improved to 8-2 and forced a three-way tie with the Warriors and Mountain City Christian, which has won six straight state championships at the 3A and now 4A level while still known as ACS.

The Knights, 2-0 against Wasilla in the NLC this year, ended up as the top seed in the NLC tourney. Wasilla is second and MCC is seeded third.

Alycia Shelley and Hallie Clark led Colony with 11 points each during the win over the Warriors. Morgan Ainsworth added 10.

Layla Hays scored a game-high 18 for Wasioa. Savannah Kroon added 14.

Colony and Wasilla both receive first-round byes in the region tourney. Colony plays the winner of fourth-seeded Palmer and fifth-seeded Soldotna Friday at 1:30 p.m. at SoHi. Wasilla plays the winner of third-seeded MCS and sixth-seeded Kodiak at 5 p.m.

Palmer plays Soldotna Thursday at 5:45 p.m.

The girls championship game is Saturday at 5 p.m. Both teams in the title game earn automatic bids to the state tourney.

The Wasilla boys forced the varsity split Friday on their senior night with a 64-61 win over the rival Knights. Gavin Morris led the Warriors with 18 points. Noah Kroon and Tristan Horton added a dozen each. Wasilla poured in 21 during the second quarter and another 24 in the fourth.

Horton hit four of Wasilla’s eight threes.

Blake Dinkel erupted for a game-high 35 points in the Colony loss. Dinkel hit 15 shots from the field, including a trio of threes. Fifteen of his points came in the final quarter. LJ Jones added 10.

The game was Colony’s first loss in the NLC this season, but the Knights (9-1) still earned the No. 1 seed. Wasilla (8-2) is seeded second.

Colony will play the winner of fourth-seeded Palmer and fifth-seeded Kodiak Friday at 3:15 p.m. The Warriors face the winner of third-seeded Soldotna and sixth-seeded MCC Friday at 6:45 p.m.

Palmer plays Kodiak Thursday at 4 p.m. The championship game is Saturday at 6:45 p.m.

Palmer capped its NLC regular season with a pair of games against SoHi Friday at PHS. The Moose split with the Stars.

Larkin Christiansen scored 17 points to lead the Moose to a 56-47 win over Soldotna. Theresa Arreola had 16.

The SoHi boys edged Palmer 69-64. Weston Bullock and Isaac Evans had 13 each for Palmer. Tony Sheldon chipped in 12.

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