Palmer girls fall to Juneau-Douglas

PALMER — The Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bear girls completed their Mat-Su Valley road trip with a crushing 63-20 victory over the Palmer Moose Saturday afternoon at Palmer High School.

From the first tip-off, Juneau’s defense was the story of the game. Juneau’s press smothered any Moose attempts at offensive progress. Moose guards had a hard time getting the ball getting past half court, let alone into the paint and to the basket.

“If we can get our defense going, our offense just happens for us,” said Juneau-Douglas head coach Leslie Knight.

The Juneau defense certainly got going. Sarah Tarver capitalized multiple times on that, taking the ball from Palmer ballhandlers from one end of the court to the other for breakaway layups.

When the Crimson Bears were in the half court set, the inside game helped them run up the score.

“We have some nice size. We have multiple 6-footers, so as a post-heavy team most of our offense is going to come from the paint,” said Knight.

Tarver, Taylor Larson and Nani Ostrom reaped the benefits of the Juneau-style of offense. Juneau played all three Valley teams on the road trip, seeing lots of non-conference action.

“The nice thing about getting up here is that we get to see the other teams, so when we play them later on we know what to expect,” Knight said. “We’ll likely see them at the Dimond tournament later on this year, and of course everything is preparation for the state tournament at the end of the season.”

The Moose play Colony on Tuesday.

Juneau tops Colony

COLONY — Juneau-Douglas held Colony to only seven second-half points, and posted a 43-21 win over the Knights at Colony High School on Friday.

Juneau-Douglas 43, Colony 21

Friday, Colony High School

Juneau 6-12-14-11—43

Colony 9-5-5-2—21

Juneau (43) — Ostrom 3 0-0 8, Brakes 0 1-2 1, Tarver 1 2-3 4, Weyhrauch 3 3-4 9, Larson 6 1-4 13, Siddeck 2 0-0 4, Swofford 2 0-0 4; Totals: 17 7-13 43.

Colony (21) — M. Klapperich 1 0-2 2, Nelson 3 0-0 7, K. Klapperich 1 2-5 4, Leight 2 2-3 6, Forstner 1 0-0 2; Totals: 8 4-10 21.

Three-point field goals: Juneau 2 (Ostrom 2), Colony 1 (Nelson 1); Total fouls: Juneau 14, Colony 15.