At the Gold Medal tournament Monday at Juneau-Douglas High School, two evenly-matched teams of guards met for a second round showdown in the B bracket, with Haines topping Hydaburg after withstanding a large comeback from the Watchmen.
Haines held on 107-100 after leading by as many as 22 points in the second half. Both teams showed great ball handling throughout the game as they both primarily roster guards. Hydaburg pressed and stole their way back into the game late, but Haines’ Kyle Fossman weaved through Hydaburg’s tenacious defense enough times to retain control of the lead, going 16 of 18 from the line on his way to a tournament-high 45 points.
“Pretty much all of us are guards, on both teams, so it’s a fast paced game,” Fossman said. “It was physical, and it’s a fun game to play because it’s all running and moving the ball, trying to get good shots.”
On Hydaburg’s comeback, Fossman said: “Sometimes when you get a lead you change the way you play a little, without thinking about it. I think we might have backed off a little bit and they pressured us and took advantage, it let them get back into the game because we stopped scoring and they were being aggressive. They worked hard to get back in, they are a good team.”
Following Fossman’s 45 points for Haines were Orion Falvey and Ryan Harms with 19 each. Tyler Healy contributed 13 points.
For the second game in a row Hydaburg’s Vinny and Devin Edenshaw both hit five 3-pointers, this time for 35 and 32 points respectively. Darron Edenshaw contributed 18 points while Donald Edenshaw added eight.
Vinny Edenshaw knew his team needed to play their game to make some kind of comeback.
“We played with a lot of heart. We try to play as hard a defense as we can, that’s where we were gonna bring ourselves back, was through defense and steals. That’s our game, getting steals and pushing fast breaks,” Edenshaw said.
He added, “We have been kind of playing a half court offense and we need to push the ball a bit more, and (during the rest of the tournament) play more like we did at the end of this game.”
Haines moves on in the winner’s bracket to play next at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
Hydaburg dropped into the loser’s bracket for a 9 p.m. Wednesday game.
