Knight Fall

JERIMIAH BARTZ/Frontiersman

ANCHORAGE — It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

Colony was the defending state champions. And after graduating just one player and returning eight seniors from that title-winning team, the Knights cruised through the regular season, gathering 23 wins and a Northern Lights Conference crown along the way.

The Knights seemed destined to stay at the top of the prep basketball ladder and be the ones to call themselves state champions once again.

But the Chugiak Mustangs used sturdy interior defense and a couple big plays to re-write the Knights’ storybook ending and grab a 41-36 win over Colony in the final game of the ASAA/First National Bank 4A State Championships at the Sullivan Arena on Saturday.

“What is comes down to is they made plays,” Colony head coach Don Witzel said after the loss.

Chugiak senior Lorrie Clifford scored a game-high 16 points, a total that included a handful of game-altering buckets at key times during a grudge match between the same two teams that took the court during the 2007-08-title game.

Clifford hit an early three-pointer to spark the Mustangs and give the 2007-08 runners-up their first score. And twice, Clifford drove to the basket, cutting through the Colony defense, to get the bucket and give Chugiak the lead.

Those two shots represented two of the combined four lead changes in the game.

With a minute left in the first half, Clifford grabbed the defensive rebound on one end of the court, and sprinted coast-to-coast to get Chugiak the bucket and the 17-15 advantage.

Early in the fourth with the Mustangs trailing by one, Clifford took the ball down the court, cut through the Colony defense once again. She got to the basket, drew the foul, sank the free throw to complete the three-point play and give the Mustangs the 29-27 lead.

Chugiak would not trail again.

“That’s what it comes down to in a game like this, pretty evenly matched. Somebody steps up and makes some plays, and they made some plays,” Witzel said.

While Clifford supplied the clutch offensive play in the game, Chugiak used a tough interior presence to prevent Colony from capitalizing on its offensive end.

Colony shot just 25 percent in the first half, 29 percent in the game and only one Knight — senior Allie Grazulis — was able to reach double-digits in scoring. Grazulis scored 10.

“They came out and put pressure on us,” Witzel said. “We certainly had some good looks at the basket, but they didn’t go in.”

Senior Kara Larson finished with eight points and seven rebounds in the game, and senior Alex Coon had seven points and six boards.

An emphasis for the Colony offense is looking to its inside game and to Coon in particular.

“(Chugiak), like other teams, double and triple her,” Witzel said of Coon, Colony’s UAA-bound all-state forward. “Earlier on in the game, she got some opportunities, but they adjusted to that. Every time she got the ball, they were doubling and tripling her.”

After Clifford pushed Chugiak to the early lead, Larson used a rebound and put-back to put Colony on top at the 4:30 mark of the first. Colony was able to hold the advantage until Clifford tied the score at 13-13 with a lay-up with 2:30 left in the first half.

Liz Meddaugh gave the Mustangs a four-point lead — the Mustangs biggest lead of the game until the final seconds of the contest — early in the third and Chugiak led for much of the third period until a Larson lay-up tied the game at 25-25 at the tail end of the quarter.

Grazulis hit a jumper on Colony’s first possession of the fourth to push Colony to the 27-25 advantage, but that would be the final time Colony led in the game.

The Mustangs used 16 fourth-quarter points and hit five of six free throws in the final 30 seconds to seal the win.

Witzel, who has now led seven different squads to the state title, said even though the loss is difficult to take at this moment, he knows his players realize what they’ve accomplished.

Coon echoed his sentiments.

“I think the game came down to big plays at the end of the game and that helped them out. But I feel like our team is very unified. I’m just lucky to know all these girls and I’m glad they’re in my life,” Coon said. “It’s hard. We know that we should have played better, but our team has accomplished a lot. One thing our team has that other teams don’t, we have friendship that can’t be replaced by simple things. I can honestly say that we’re probably the closest team in this whole tournament.”

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

Chugiak 41, Colony 36

ASAA 4A state final

Saturday, Sullivan Arena

Colony 9-8-8-11—36

Chugiak 7-12-6-16—41

Colony (36) — Hamann 2 0-2 4, Klapperich 1 2-2 4, Ma. Bowker 1 0-0 3, Grazulis 2 6-7 10, Coon 3 1-3 7, Larson 4 0-0 8; Totals: 13 9-16 36. Chugiak (41) — Sweeney 0 1-2 1, Watzke 1 3-4 5, Rochon 1 0-0 2, Meddaugh

3 1-2 7, Sayer 3 4-4 10, Clifford 6 3-6 16; Totals: 14 12-18 41.

Three-point field goals: Colony 1 (Bowker 1), Chugiak 1 (Clifford 1); Rebounds: Colony 35 (Grazulis, Coon 7), Chugiak 30 (Meddaugh, Clifford 7); Total fouls: Colony 18, Chugiak 14; Fouled out: none.