The Juneau Empire’s expanded coverage of the Juneau Lions Club 74th Gold Medal Basketball Tournament is made possible by Sealaska Corp. Thanks to this sponsorship, this article —and all of this year’s Gold Medal coverage — is available online without a subscription to the Empire.
The Yakutat and Prince of Wales women faced off Thursday in the second Women’s Bracket game of the day in this year’s Gold Medal Basketball Tournament.
It was a hard-fought battle, and Yakutat hung in from start to finish, nearly taking the lead at times, but by the fourth quarter Prince of Wales was able to put some distance between the teams and maintain at least a 10 point lead for a 53-44 finish.
Prince of Wales’ Michaela Demmert said it felt great to be this far along in the tournament and plans to prioritize defense before Saturday’s championship game.
“It feels really good to be back after all of these years; it’s refreshing and yeah, just really good to see everyone again,” Demmert said. “We’ll be working a lot more on defense before the next game, that way we can shut them down, lock up on defense so we can rest on offense.”
Cassie Williams led in scores for Prince of Wales with 17 points and Nani Weimer had 15. Nadine Fraker led Yakutat in scoring with 11 points.
Prince of Wales now advances to the championship game at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Yakutat will play against Angoon at 2 p.m. on Friday.
All five of Prince of Wales Gold Medal titles have come in the tournament’s Women’s Bracket, with the most recent coming in 2005.
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
