It’s tourney time

MAT-SU — When the seeding for the ASAA/First National Bank 4A State Basketball Championships was released early last week, the Colony Knights and Wasilla Warriors found themselves on the bottom looking up.

Colony is the seventh seed and will face second-seed Dimond Thursday at 1:15 p.m. at the Sullivan Arena, while Wasilla — the reigning Northern Lights Conference champion — is seeded eighth and meets top-seeded West Anchorage at 8:45 p.m.

But regardless of the seeding, the local teams know it takes three victories to win a title.

“You’ve got to beat the best to cut down the nets anyway,” Wasilla head coach Ryan Engebretsen said after the brackets were released. “Dimond and West had terrific seasons, but it doesn’t matter when you play them. You’ve got to play the best team to cut down the nets.”

Engebretsen said the Warriors could dwell on mid-season losses that caused the team’s winning percentage index — the formula used to rank 4A teams.

“It’s just a numbers game with the WPI,” Engebretsen said. “It is what it is.”

Instead, the Warriors will just focus on their game and the momentum gained from the NLC title they earned two weeks ago.

Wasilla was actually in a similar situation heading into the conference tourney. The Warriors were the No. 3 seed from the four-team NLC North, but still came out on top.

“We got the prize we went after when we went to Kodiak and now we’re chasing a bigger prize,” Engebretsen said.

Wasilla scored wins over Kenai, Colony and Soldotna en route to cutting down the NLC nets. The Warriors had dropped games to the Knights and Stars during the regular season.

Engebretsen said his team’s commitment to defense is among the reasons for success at the NLC tourney in Kodiak. The senior leadership of players such as captains Adrese LaVern and Tillerman Kroon and emergence of younger talent, such as junior Cody Pfeifer, also factored heavily into the Warriors’ success, Engebretsen said.

Fourth-seeded Lathrop and fifth-seeded Soldotna are also on Wasilla’s side of the bracket.

Colony was the top team in the NLC North during the regular season, but had to fight through the backside of the bracket to get the conference’s third seed after a semifinal loss to Wasilla.

Third-seeded Juneau-Douglas and sixth-seeded Bartlett share Colony’s side of the bracket.

NLC teams in a bunch on girls bracket

There are two things that stand out about the bottom half of the 4A girls’ bracket.

First, each of the three NLC teams in the tournament are on the bottom half.

And second, the last three state champions are there.

There’s the defending state champion Colony Knights; Wasilla, the winners in 2007; and Dimond, the 2006 six state champs.

And then there’s the Kodiak Bears, who are advancing to their first state tournament in 22 years.

Looking at the WPI, Colony head coach Don Witzel thought his top-seeded Knights would most likely play a team from the NLC, but the longtime coach was surprised that the lower half of the bracket was made up of teams predominately from the same conference.

Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax agreed.

“It’s weird all three from our region are in the same side of the bracket,” Hebert-Truax said.

Wasilla is the fifth seed and will face fourth-seeded Dimond at 3:30 p.m. Thursday and top-seeded Colony will play Kodiak, the eighth seed, at 5:15 p.m.

Kodiak finished just 2-8 in NLC play during the regular season, but the Knights are expecting a much tougher opponent.

“Kodiak played very well over on the rock,” Witzel said, referring to the Bears’ play during the NLC Championships at Kodiak High School two weeks ago. “They were playing very good basketball. It’s going to be a challenge.”

Kodiak suffered a one-point loss to Kenai during the first round of the tourney, but followed with double-digit wins over Palmer and Soldotna en route to grabbing the tourney’s third and final state berth.

Now the Bears have the chance to play in their first state tournament since 1987.

Wasilla drew a nonconference opponent in Dimond, but a team the Warriors have seen twice before.

Wasilla is 1-1 against the Lynx, scoring a lopsided win over Dimond early in the season and suffering a slim loss to the Anchorage team during the championship game of the Lady Lynx Tournament in February.

Hebert-Truax said the big difference between the two games was the mid-season loss of sophomore forward Celeste Colegrove.

Colegrove suffered a knee injury during a win over Ketchikan in the Lady Lynx semifinals. Hebert-Truax said the Warriors have since made adjustment since losing Colegrove, who was second on the team in scoring.

On the other half of the bracket, third-seeded Ketchikan will face sixth-seeded West Valley at 8 a.m. and second-seeded Chugiak will follow against seventh-seeded West Anchorage at 9:45 a.m.

“It’s a very competitive tournament,” Witzel said. “There are no gimmies.”

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