Su Valley breaks in new gymnasium by hosting tournament

TALKEENTA — It’s been nearly three years since fire ravaged Susitna Valley Junior/Senior High School and burned the 34-year-old building to the ground.

Since that fire in 2007, it’s been nearly three years worth of school days in portable classrooms for the Su Valley students, and nearly three years worth of road trips for the Rams basketball squads.

But now those students finally have a home.

And to celebrate, the school and its basketball programs are hosting the Susitna Valley Crowley Classic basketball tournament.

The tourney, which started Thursday at Su Valley, will showcase the new school, which officially opened in early January, and its brand new gymnasium.

“We thought this would be a great way to open our new school up and have the community and the other teams playing come out and see our nice new facility,” Su Valley activities director and girls basketball coach James Sickler said.

Teams from Fort Yukon, Nenana, Whittier, Cornerstone Christian, Valley Christian, Wings Christian and Matanuska Christian will join host Su Valley in the three-day Crowley Classic.

The 12-team event, which includes six boys and six girls squad, will feature two days worth of pool play. On Saturday, teams will be paired for a medal round.

Sickler said Su Valley had hoped to host a hoops tourney, long before the old Su Valley High burned down.

“This is huge,” Sickler said. “This is the first invitational we’ve thrown for basketball since as far back as I can remember. And that’s 20 years.”

Even throughout the process of rebuilding the Su Valley High, and putting together two years worth of basketball squads made up exclusively by road games, members of the Su Valley staff continued to keep the hope of hosting a tourney alive.

“We had that setback, but we were all pretty excited about doing something,” Sickler said.

Sickler said a pair of people from Crowley’s Talkeetna office, Mark Forrester and Jackie Hanson, were instrumental in the effort to make the tourney a reality.

The Rams boys and girls basketball teams spent the last two seasons playing one road game after the other. The closest thing Su Valley had to a home game came when the Rams hosted a team at Houston Middle School.

And that’ wasn’t exactly a regular thing.

“They were extremely gracious to let us be able to us there school,” Sickler said.

On Jan. 9, the Rams had the chance to host their first official home games since the 2006-07 season.

“It was amazing,” Sickler said. “We’d been practicing in these tiny little gyms and playing away from home for so long.”

Sickler said the Rams certainly missed the atmosphere of a home game.

“We have our school spirit back now. I don’t know if it went anywhere, but it definitely feels like we have a stronger sense of community,” Sickler said. “The community support has been so great. That’s something we’ve really, really been missing.”

Su Valley’s gymnasium is modest in size, with a total square footage similar to the gym at Houston High. But there’s a brand new hardwood court.

And most important, it’s a home for Su Valley sports.

“It’s not huge, but it’s perfect for us,” Sickler said. “We think it’s the best court in the state.”

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