Redington girls earn No. 2 seed in conference tournament

The Redington Huskies girls basketball program has enjoyed steady progress during the past two seasons. This year, the Huskies earned the No. 2 seed from the Southcentral Conference North Division for the conference tournament, which starts Thursday at Anchorage Christian School.

“We’re really stoked, really excited about it,” Redington head coach Tim Maki said.

Redington finished 4-2 in the North Division. The Huskies were a combined 4-0 against Houston and Grace Christian. The losses came to Anchorage Christian, which has not lost a game in more than two years. The Huskies were also 3-1 against teams from the Southcentral South Division. As the Huskies entered the season, Maki said he didn’t want his team to look too far ahead.

“One game at a time,” Maki said. “We didn’t talk much about season goals. We didn’t want to put a lot of pressure on the kids.”

Maki said, overall, the Huskies are still young.

“We focused more on our own preparation,” Maki said.

Maki said the conversation centered around skill development, and not on what another team may or may not have. The game plan resulted in a number of firsts for the Huskies. Redington beat Grace Christian for the first time, and posted the first road wins at Homer and Nikiski.

The Huskies open Southcentral Conference play against Kenai Central Thursday at noon at ACS in the quarterfinals. Kenai scored a 47-35 win over the Huskies on March 6. Maki said the Huskies felt like they did not play to their potential in the loss.

“We didn’t defend as well as we know we can,” Maki said. “We didn’t feel like our defense was up to our standard.”

Maki said the Huskies can learn from the loss.

“That game might end up being a good thing for us,” Maki said. “Defensively, we were not where we need to be Thursday.”

Defending state champion ACS has controlled the conference, but Maki said he sees a solid amount of parity among the remaining teams in the conference.

“We believe we can make a run at the state berth,” Maki said.

The top two teams from each bracket earn automatic berths to the state tournament.

But again, Maki said, the focus is the game-by-game approach. The Huskies share the same side of the bracket as Houston and Nikiski.

The Houston girls are the North Division’s No. 4 seed. The Hawks meet Nikiski Thursday at 4 p.m. Houston finished 3-1 during the final four games of the regular season, and scored conference wins over Grace Christian and Seward.

The Houston boys are the North’s No. 3 seed and will play Homer Thursday at 1:30 p.m. The Redington boys are the No. 4 seed and will play Seward Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in the quarterfinals.

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