State basketball tourney notebook: Warriors break record, Valley displays young talent

WASILLA — It’s been a week since the Wasilla Warriors made 4A girls basketball history.

With its 44-40 win over Dimond in the championship game, Wasilla now boasts a state-record six 4A titles. Below is a closer look at the numbers, and random notes from the 2016 ASAA state basketball championships.

Title town

Wasilla is Alaska’s 4A girls basketball title town. Earning its sixth state crown, Wasilla moved ahead of East Anchorage in the history books. East has five titles. Colony, Chugiak, Dimond and Juneau-Douglas have four state championships each.

Wasilla has also appeared in the most 4A girls state title games, with 11 trips to the final. East and Colony have both made nine appearances in the 4A final.

Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax also owns a state record, with five state championships as a head coach. Former Colony High school mentor Don Witzel is second on the list with four 4A girls championships as a head coach. Hebert-Truax has also led the Warriors to eight of Wasilla’s 11 title games.

Wasilla made its first state title game appearance in 1980, falling 44-26 to East. It marked the first of three straight trips to the final. The Warriors captured their first state title in school history with a 58-53 win over Service in 1982. That squad included former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Hebert-Truax also added to her overall total of state titles. In addition to her five rings as a coach, Hebert-Truax won a pair of titles as a player. The 1988 graduate of Monroe Catholic led the Rams to state titles in 1987 and 1988. She made four straight trips to the state title game as a player, playing for a North Pole program that finished as the runner-up in 1985 and 1986 and the title-winning teams at Monroe. In total, as a player and coach, Hebert-Truax has been a part of 12 Alaska girls state title games.

Hebert-Truax is not the only person on the Wasilla bench to have rings as a player and a coach. Wasilla High activities director and assistant coach Stacia Rustad led Kenai Central to a 58-53 win over Palmer, as a player, in the 1991 state title game. Rustad earned her first ring as an assistant coach this season.

Young talent

Four Valley teams advanced to the 4A state basketball tournaments in March: the Wasilla girls and boys, the Palmer boys and the Colony girls. Judging by the number of underclassmen in the starting lineups, these programs should expect return trips to the Alaska Airlines Center.

Half of the combined starters from the four Valley teams are underclassmen. Of the combined 20 Valley starters in the state tournament, eight were sophomores and two were freshmen. Five juniors and five seniors started for the Valley teams.

The Colony girls had the most underclassmen in the starting lineup, with four sophomores in the starting five. The Wasilla boys didn’t have a senior starting. The group included a freshman, two sophomores and two juniors.

The state champion Wasilla girls will graduate only two seniors.

The Palmer boys featured a sophomore in the starting lineup. Palmer was the only Valley team to start three seniors during the state tournament.

Freshmen phenoms

The 4A girls state championship game featured a battle of freshman who were named first-team all-state by the Alaska Association of Basketball Coaches — Wasilla guard Olivia Davies and Dimond forward Alissa Pili.

Both ninth graders played key roles for their teams in the title game, and each came through big late in the game when the contest was still in question. With about 1:20 left in regulation, Pili used a rebound and putback to cut Wasilla’s lead to 42-40. With 7.7 seconds left, Davies drained a pair of free throws to push Wasilla’s lead to a pair of possessions.

Davies matched sophomore Azlynn Brandenburg with a team-high 11 points for the Warriors. Pili led Dimond with 14 points and nine rebounds.

Davies averaged nearly 12 points and four rebounds per game during the tournament, and notched a 14-4 assist-to-turnover ratio. Davies — a 5-foot-9 guard — also led the tournament with seven blocked shots.

Pili averaged 18.3 points and 11.7 rebounds per game. Only Alaska Gatorade Player of the Year winner Ruthy Hebard of West Valley did better (28 points 17 rebounds per game).

Alaska basketball fans can most likely expect three more years worth of battles between Davies and Pili on the court.

Mass minutes

The Wasilla girls’ basketball squad boasted among its deepest squads in recent memory. But that doesn’t mean the Warriors didn’t have players who logged mass minutes. Wasilla played 100 total minutes (two 32-minute regulation games and a third with a four-minute overtime) during the three-day state weekend. Of those 100 minutes, junior McKenna Dinkel was on the floor for 94 of them. Dinkel played in every minute during the state final, and 31 total minutes in each of the first two games of the tourney. Davies played in 85 minutes.

The Palmer and Wasilla boys teams were not known for going deep as deep on their bench. Palmer had three players (Clayton Southwick, Payton Martin and Chase Ferris) play 90 of a possible 96 minutes. Michael Kluting logged 89 minutes.

Wasilla freshman Daniel Headdings played in 63 of a possible 64 minutes in a pair of boys’ games. Sophomore Reilly Devine saw 62 minutes and junior Isaac Houck played in 60 minutes.

Standout stats

With Palmer’s three-day run through the 4A boys state tournament, senior Michael Kluting put the exclamation point on his prep basketball career. Not only did Kluting help lead Palmer to a fourth-place finish, the team’s best finish since 2004, he also led the tournament in both scoring and rebounding.

Kluting averaged 22.7 points per game, more than four points better than East Anchorage’s Moses Miller. He also averaged a tournament-best 12.3 rebounds per game, more than two better than East’s Daon Jones.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.