<\/a>Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé’s Sean Oliver (11) looks for room inside against Grace Christian School during Saturday night’s game at JDHS. (Mark Sabbatini \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
For the boys, Jhowel Estigoy, a 6’3” senior forward, took a chance on a long inbound pass when he spotted an open Sean Oliver three-fourths of the way downcourt, with the 6’4” guard scoring easily on his own layup to put his team up by seven with less than a minute remaining against Grace Christian School.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The Crimson Bears girls (8-4 overall, 2-0 in the 4A Southeast Conference) prevailed by a final score of 49-42 during their homecoming game Saturday, after beating South Anchorage (6-5 overall, 1-1 in the 4A Cook Inlet Conference) on Friday 60-41. The JDHS boys (8-7 overall, 0-0 conference) defeated Grace Christian (8-4 overall, 0-0 conference) 40-33 on Saturday, avenging a 62-61 loss on Friday.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Both games saw the teams play in spurts, with the Crimson Bears taking leads of several points only to see their opponents close the gap.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Freshman hits key shots for JDHS girls<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The JDHS girls took a 15-9 first-quarter lead over South Anchorage, but the teams were deadlocked at 23-23 at halftime. The Crimson Bears jumped out to a seven-point lead late in the third quarter, but South Anchorage crept back and narrowed the gap to four until Tokuoka hit a three-pointer at the buzzer to make the score 40-34 with one quarter remaining.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Layla Tokuoka (14) tries to drive inside for Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé during Saturday’s game against South Anchorage High School at JDHS. (Mark Sabbatini \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t “We weren’t getting back on defense as quick as we should have,” Tokuoka said after the game about the portions of the game where South Anchorage was able to rally.”We weren’t talking. We just needed to be more of a team on defense.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Teammates started covering the ball better with more separation and applying pressure on South Anchorage players “and it seemed to really kind of bother them toward the end,” she said, when asked about her steal that led to the decisive margin.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Some hitches on offense also played a role in Saturday’s game being closer than Friday’s, said JDHS girls’ head coach Tanya Nizich.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “They were defensively aggressive,” she said, referring to South Anchorage’s adjustments. “It was changing the way that we normally play. And those are things that we can fix. They’re smart enough, just adapting, and it took a long time, but we figured it out to calm down with the ball and just use less dribbles, see our open person. They were always double-teaming us up top, leaving a person open. We just needed to keep our heads up, and look for that open person and better passes.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>