WHS to host holiday tourney

WASILLA — Since he took the reins of the Wasilla Warriors boys basketball program prior to the 2007-08 season, Ryan Engebretsen has wanted to bring a holiday hoops tournament to Wasilla High School.

This season, Engebretsen will get his wish.

The Wasilla boys and girls basketball programs will host the inaugural Doc Larson’s Roundball Classic Dec. 21-23 at WHS.

“We finally made some things happen, and we decided to run with it,” said Engebretsen, who will officially begin his third season as Wasilla’s head coach when the Warriors take the court for the first day of practice on Monday. “It took a little planning, but we wanted to make sure we did it right the first time.”

With the help of a few folks close to the program, Engebretsen said, he was able to put together the eight-team round-robin tourney, that will include four boys squads and four girls teams.

The help of Dan “Doc” Larson, the longtime team doctor and athletic trainer for Warrior athletics, was instrumental, Engebretsen said.

Larson is the title sponsor for the event.

The inaugural tourney boasts a strong field that includes five defending conference champions and one of the top 3A schools from the state of Washington.

Among the four boys teams is the Enumclaw (Wash.) Hornets, a squad coached by Engebretsen’s brother Phil, a former head coach at Colony High School.

The Hornets are the top-ranked team in the preseason poll for Washington’s 3A class, Engebretsen said. In Washington, the 3A class includes schools with 1,200-1,600 students.

Joining Enumclaw are a pair of defending conference champions. Host Wasilla is the reigning Northern Lights Conference champ, while Juneau-Douglas won the Southeast Conference title last season.

Chugiak rounds out the boys’ field.

Leading the girls’ field is the defending 4A state champion Chugiak Mustangs.

Chugiak is one of three defending conference champions slated to compete. Ketchikan won the Southeast Conference title last year and West Valley captured the Mid-Alaska Conference title.

The Wasilla girls finished second in the NLC and third in the state tourney.

Engebretsen said he hopes the future of the Roundball Classic includes more teams from Outside. His goal is to have at least 50 percent of the teams in future tourneys to be from outside Alaska.

A team from California, which had captured state titles in four of the last five years, had agreed to participate in the inaugural tourney, but pulled out about two weeks ago, Engebretsen said.

That spot was filled by Chugiak.

Engebretsen said he does have quite a bit of interest from Outside programs for the 2010 tourney.

Engebretsen said he sees a need for the holiday tourney for a number of reasons. First, with the loss of the Palmer Elks Showdown, there has not been a varsity tourney in the Valley since 2007. Engebretsen also wanted to give his athletes a chance to play in a competitive holiday tournament without having to leave their families over the holiday break.

“That was the main focus,” Engebretsen said. “To bring in great competition and keep our kids home at Christmas.”

Wasilla assistant principal Dan Michael said that’s where he sees the value in hosting the holiday tourney.

“It puts a real strain on parents, not just financially, but leaving during Christmastime,” Michael said. “It’s nice for them to be around closer to home.”

Engebretsen said he hopes the Roundball Classic will evolve into a premiere event in the state. He hopes to see the field grow, and didn’t discount the idea of seeing eight boys and eight girls teams take the court in future tourneys.

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