Warriors rally to get past Stars

WASILLA — The Wasilla Warriors looked like a beaten team midway through the third quarter Friday night against the visiting Soldotna Stars.

After playing a ragged first half, the Warriors stumbled out of the locker room and promptly allowed SoHi to begin pulling away. But instead of giving up, or hanging their heads over a poor shooting performance, the Warriors decided the least they could do would be to play some hard-nosed defense.

And as any coach will tell you, that’s usually the best way to get things going in the right direction.

“This was a good gut check for us,” Wasilla coach Ryan Engebretsen said following Wasilla’s 58-50 comeback Northern Lights Conference win. “My guys decided to gut it out and step it up.”

Wasilla outscored SoHi 22-13 in the fourth quarter, effectively shutting down the Stars’ offensive attack by forcing numerous turnovers that led to easy baskets going the other way.

Engebretsen said the game showed his team has the ability to overcome a weak night from the floor.

“We crawled over a huge hurdle in the sense that things weren’t going for a lot of guys,” he said.

Wasilla opened the game on a 9-4 run, but the Stars battled back and looked to be heading into the locker room with a slim first-half lead. But Warrior senior forward Shane Green stole the ball with just seconds remaining and quickly passed to guard Jimmy Sliwa, who nailed a buzzer-beating trey from the top of the key to give the Warriors a 28-26 lead at the half.

SoHi then opened the second half on a 11-2 run to take a 37-30 lead to put Wasilla on the ropes.

But the Warriors didn’t panic.

Instead, the team relied on quickness and defense to force Soldotna to make mistakes — which eventually, they did.

SoHi turned the ball over 22 times — including 12 in the second half — as Wasilla was able to slowly crawl back into the game, finishing the third quarter on a 6-0 run to cut SoHi’s advantage to just a single point to start the fourth.

Some of that was due to sloppiness, some due to the sticky fingers of senior guard Dexter Pearce, who finished with six steals.

Following the game, Pearce said Wasilla fell back on its defense in an effort to jump-start things on the offensive end of the floor.

“Once our defense kicked in we scored off that, got some good looks,” Pearce said.

Engebretsen said the win was a testament to his team’s ability to keep fighting even when things were starting to go wrong. The Warriors scored just eight points in the third quarter, and had to weather a stretch of poor shooting that had players and coaches alike shaking their heads.

“It’s a huge win for us in that sense. When things started to go real sour in the third quarter we could have easily broken,” he said.

At one point in the second half, Wasilla held SoHi without a field goal for more than seven minutes as the Stars struggled to find their offensive rhythm.

“We turned the ball over too much, and at inopportune times,” SoHi coach Chris Hanson said after the game.

Pearce was also the catalyst on offense, scoring nine of his game-high 17 points in the final eight minutes and grabbing a game-high seven rebounds.

Tyler Johannes added 12 points for Wasilla, the biggest of which was a clutch jumper in the lane that gave Wasilla the lead for good at 44-42 with just over four minutes left to play.

Adrese LaVern added 11 points, including a perfect 6-for-6 from the free throw line. The Warriors also got five points from Tillerman Kroon, four each from Jason Flowers and John Knowles, three from Sliwa and two from Green.

Ryan Shelton and Matt Grubb led a balanced Soldotna attack with 10 points each, while Michael Bauder had eight, Liam Andrus had six, Larson Kohler and Brad Blossom each netted five, while Blaine Carver and Lucas Barkman finished with three points apiece. Andrus led the Stars with six rebounds.

WARRIORS 58, STARS 50

Friday, Wasilla High School

Wasilla9 19 8 22 — 58

Soldotna6 20 11 13 — 50

Wasilla (58) — Kroon 1 2-2 5, Sliwa 1 0-0 3, LaVern 2 6-6 11, Pearce 7 2-4 17, Johannes 6 0-0 12, S. Green 0 2-2 2, Flowers 1 1-2 4, Knowles 2 0-1 4. Totals: 20 13-17 58.

Soldotna (50) — Carver 1 0-0 3, Br. Blossom 1 3-4 5, Grubb 2 5-6 10, Bauder 2 3-4 8, Barkman 1 1-2 3, Kohler 1 2-2 5, Andrus 2 2-4 6, Shelton 5 0-1 10. Totals: 15 16-23 50.

Three point goals: Wasilla 5 (Kroon, Sliwa, LaVern, Pearce, Flowers), Soldotna 4 (Carver, Grubb, Bauder, Kohler). Total fouls: Wasilla 21, Soldotna 16. Fouled out: none.

Shooters lead Warriors past Moose

PALMER — Junior Adrese LaVern scored a game-high 30 points to lead the Wasilla Warriors to a win over the Palmer Moose on Saturday at Palmer High School.

Senior Dexter Pearce added 22 points in the win for the Warriors, who improved to 5-1 in Northern Lights Conference play.