It’s an all-Valley semifinal

ANCHORAGE — Here we go again.

The Palmer Moose guaranteed at least one Mat-Su Valley girls team will reach the state final with a 46-45 win over South Anchorage Thursday in the opening round of the Alaska Class 4A state tournament, setting up a semifinal clash with Colony at 3:30 p.m. today.

“It’s gonna be fun,” Palmer coach Paul Reid said after his team dodged several late bullets against the Wolverines at West Anchorage High to finalize the all-Valley semi.

South’s Sylvia Bullock scored 22 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, but also had a crucial turnover late in the game that helped the Moose hang on.

“The first round’s the most important one,” Reid said.

The win was big for Palmer, which lost in the first round of last year’s tournament before eventually winning twice to claim fourth place.

Reid said the fact that most of this year’s team was around last year — the Moose have 10 upperclassmen on this season’s roster — was a key to his team’s ability to hang on against South.

“I definitely think it helped,” Reid said. “Having already been to one, I think we came out very prepared.”

Palmer looked to be in control early on, taking a a 32-25 halftime lead on the strength of an 18-8 second quarter.

But the Moose went ice cold in the third, failing to hit a field goal for more than six minutes as the Wolverines opened the half on a 7-0 run to erase the lead. Bullock, an all-state senior, was big for South in the quarter, picking up five points and a huge block on Palmer’s Jaimi Cox.

The Moose finally came alive late in the quarter, when junior guard Kelsey Campbell hit a driving lay-up and three-pointer on consecutive possessions to give Palmer a 38-36 lead heading into the fourth.

“We just had to get it together there,” Campbell said of her two big buckets.

Palmer never trailed in the final quarter, though South did tie the game at 38-38 and had two chances to pull ahead in the final minute.

With 39 seconds left and Palmer up by one, Bullock mishandled an inbound pass from beneath the South basket, giving the ball back to the Moose.

South then managed to get another steal, forcing the Moose to throw the ball out of bounds with less than 10 seconds to play.

But South was again unable to capitalize on the miscue, and when Heidi Pichler’s desperation three-pointer fell short, the Moose had earned a trip to the state semifinals.

Mattie Cox led Palmer with 12 points — including the eventual game-winner with 1:50 to play — Campbell added 10 and Geneva Ratcliff had nine.

Ashley Swetzof led the Moose with eight rebounds to go along with three points, Mikaela Bolling had six points and five rebounds, Jaimi Cox had four points and Amy Tzou added two.

Allison Horazdovsky had nine points and eight rebounds for South, which played just six players in its rotation. On the other hand, Palmer had seven players score and got nine players into the game.

“It was definitely a team effort,” Campbell said.

Palmer must now go through Colony to reach its first state title game since the Moose won it all in 1999 by beating the Knights in the final.

But don’t think the Moose are scared of their rivals.

Though Colony entered this year’s state tournament as the Northern Lights Conference champion and No. 2 seed, sixth-seeded Palmer was the last team to hand the Knights a loss, beating Colony 48-44 on senior night at Colony High.

“We beat them last time, hopefully we can repeat that,” Campbell said.

While Campbell and the Moose already had the Knights firmly in sight minutes after Thursday’s win, the junior guard said she was having a little more trouble getting used to the idea of being one game from playing for a state title.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she said. “It hasn’t hit me yet. It’s huge.”

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265 or mattt.tunseth@frontiersman.com

MOOSE 46, WOLVERINES 45

4A state quarterfinals

Thursday, West Anchorage High School

Palmer 14 18 6 11 — 46

South 17 8 11 9 — 45

PALMER (46) — Swetzof 1 1-2 3, J. Cox 1 2-2 4, Campbell 3 2-2 10, M. Cox 5 2-5 12, Bolling 3 0-0 6, Tzou 1 0-0 2, Ratcliff 4 1-2 9. Totals: 18 8-13 46.

SOUTH (45) — Brewster 0 0-2 0, Gurule 2 1-3 5, Pichler 0 2-2 2, Horazdovsky 4 0-1 9, Gamblin 2 2-2 7, Bullock 9 4-10 22. Totals: 17 9-20 45.

Three-point field goals — Palmer 2 (Campbell 2), South 2 (Horazdovsky, Gamblin). Total fouls — Palmer 17, South 12. Fouled out — none.