It’s another meeting for the Wasilla, Colony girls

WASILLA — Apparently three meetings were not enough.

After a pair of regular-season bouts and a grudge match in the Northern Lights Conference Championships title game, the Wasilla and Colony girls basketball teams will meet one more time during the first round of the ASAA/First National Bank 4A State Basketball Championships.

Wasilla and Colony are slated to play Monday at 6:45 p.m. at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage. It’ll be the fourth meeting of the season between the two rivals and second in nine days. Wasilla scored a 35-30 win over the Knights during the NLC championship game on Saturday at Skyview High School in Soldotna.

While both teams will probably have that here we go again feeling, Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax said teams need to approach these types of games with the right mentality.

“To win a state tournament you’ve got to go through three teams,” Hebert-Truax said. “It’s just what you’ve got to deal with.”

Colony and Wasilla have met in the first round of the state boys basketball tournament recently, but Hebert-Truax said this is the first time she has met a Valley rival in the first round during her 14 seasons as Wasilla’s head coach.

Wasilla enters the tournament as the third seed, while Colony is seeded sixth in the bracket. Wasilla was 17-6 against 4A schools, while Colony was 14-8 against 4A programs during the regular season. Both teams finished 8-2 in NLC play, and the rivals split a two-game regular season series.

The first three meetings have been veritable slugfests. Colony posted a 43-36 win at Colony High School in late January and Wasilla evened the series with a 43-37 victory at Wasilla High in late February. The NLC was arguably the most physical of the three meetings, considering the 50 total fouls that were called in the game.

Hebert-Truax called the game a “free-throw shoot-a-thon.” The teams combined for 73 attempts at the line. Wasilla was 20-for-39, while Colony was 11-for-34. Hebert-Truax said she expects Monday’s game to be similar to the first three meetings.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Hebert-Truax said. “We’re pretty good offensively, going after people, attacking. That’s what Colony does in their offense.”

Juneau-Douglas (19-3), the Southeast Conference champion, is the top seed and will face the third team from the NLC, Kodiak. Second-seeded Dimond (20-2), the Cook Inlet Conference champion, meets CIC rival Chugiak at 8:30 p.m. Friday. In other first-round action, Mid-Alaska Conference champion West Valley, the fourth seed, meets fifth-seeded West Anchorage at 1:15 p.m.

Dimond and Chugiak are on the same side of the bracket as Wasilla and Colony.

Teams are seeded in the tournament with the help of the Winning Percentage Index, a formula adapted by the Alaska Schools Activities Association. The WPI takes a team’s winning percentage against 4A opponents and their opponents’ winning percentage into account.

Warrior boys net

No. 2 seed

The Wasilla Warriors are seeded second in the boys bracket and drew a first-round meeting with Juneau-Douglas.

The Warriors, who beat Juneau 63-56 at the Doc Larson’s Roundball Classic in December, play the Bears Monday at 5 p.m. at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

Wasilla finished a perfect 10-0 in NLC play, and grabbed its second straight NLC title with a 69-52 victory over Colony on Saturday.

The NLC runner-up Knights are the fifth seed in the bracket and will play CIC Bartlett in the first round at 9:45 a.m. on Monday. Colony finished the season 7-3 in NLC play. Bartlett upset the top two seeds in the CIC tourney, West Anchorage and Dimond, en route to winning the conference tournament. Despite suffering that loss to Bartlett in the CIC semifinals, West Anchorage is the top seed in the tourney and will play Lathrop at 8 a.m. Monday. Third-seeded Dimond meets Soldotna, the third team from the NLC, at 3:15 Monday.

Not a typo

For those who are wondering why the first-round games are listed on Monday, it’s not because of a repeated typographical error. ASAA opted to schedule the 3A and 4A tournaments early in the week and host the 1A and 2A state tournaments on Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the week ASAA bills as Alaska March

Madness.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.