TOURNEY TIME

MAT-SU — Most folks around the Northern Lights Conference have been able to agree on at least one thing this season. There will be no clear favorite at the NLC Championships girls basketball tournament.

And now, as the eight teams in the conference prepare to hit the floor at the championship tourney, which starts Thursday at Skyview High School in Soldotna, most still think the title is up for grabs.

“It’s probably the most wide-open region since I’ve been the coach (at Palmer),” said Palmer head coach Paul Reid, who took the helm of the Moose program in 2004. “There’s not that one dominant team. Wasilla’s playing really well right now, but it’s regions and everybody steps up for regions.”

Reid’s squad is a prime example of the parity in the NLC this season. Palmer (4-6) enters the tournament as the fourth seed from the NLC North, and will play the top seed from the South, Kenai (7-3). The Moose beat Kenai during the regular season.

The competition has been so tight in the NLC North, actually, that a coin was needed to decide the division’s top seed. Thanks to a coin flip, Wasilla scored the slight edge over rival Colony and will enter the tournament as the North’s No. 1 seed.

Both teams finished the regular season locked in a first-place tie at 8-2 in conference play and a series of four tiebreakers still couldn’t separate the two rivals. Colony and Wasilla split a two-game regular season series and both teams were 4-2 in the North Division. The fourth tiebreaker is common opponents outside of the conference, and Wasilla head coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax said the title couldn’t be settled their either.

So a coin was flipped.

“You’ve got to get it done some how,” Hebert-Truax said of the toss.

Wasilla’s No. 1 seed does come with one catch, the Warriors are saddled with the opening game of the tourney, a contest that’s scheduled to start at 8 a.m. Thursday. The Warriors draw winless Homer in the first round.

“We’ve had this happen before, come in as the No. 1 seed and play at 8 a.m. But somebody has got to play (in the early game),” Hebert-Truax said. “At least we’ve got the rest of the day off.”

Wasilla will head into the tourney riding a seven-game winning streak. The Warriors have also won six straight in region play.

“My kids are playing well. They’ve had their best two weeks of the season when you want them to have it,” Hebert-Truax said.

Colony head coach Tom Lincoln is also pleased about the play of his second-seeded Knights. Following an early season loss to Kodiak, Colony has scored wins in eight of its last nine conference games. The Knights are the two-time defending NLC champions, but Colony returns only two players who played significant minutes for the 2008-09 title team.

“I think we’re ready, but we still have a lot of learning to do,” Lincoln said. “We’re not a young team anymore. We’re at the end of the season now, so it’s like everyone has jumped a grade. It’s just experience for them, playing on the floor with each other.”

The Knights open with host Skyview (2-8) Thursday at 6:15 p.m., and will play either Kenai or Palmer on Friday.

“We’re excited. I think it’s going to be a heck of a battle,” Lincoln said. “It’s going to be a fun region tournament, I think anyone can win it. It’s really up to who ever’s playing the best basketball for those three nights.”

The Moose and the Kardinals meet at 3 p.m. on Thursday during the opening round. The Moose finished with only four wins during the conference regular season, but one of those came against their first-round opponent on the Kenai Peninsula.

“I think any matchup out of the gate is pretty tough, but I think every team has a pretty good shot,” Reid said.

The top three teams of the NLC tourney will advance to the state tournament, which is slated for March 15-17 at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage. Colony, Wasilla and Kodiak represented the NLC during the 2009 state tourney.

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