The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé boys basketball opened their trip to the Colony Basketball Classic tournament with a hard-fought 64-54 loss to the host Colony Knights Thursday in Palmer.<\/p>\n
“They are well coached, and they are very disciplined,” JDHS coach Robert Casperson said. “And then they throw some athleticism in there, and a little bit of size and stuff, so they are going to have opportunities to do some things. They are ahead of us.”<\/p>\n
Colony scored the first two points of the game on what would be the Achilles heel for JDHS.<\/p>\n
Knights senior Eli Whitworth rebounded a missed shot and put it back up and in.<\/p>\n
After Knights junior teammate Leyton Lockard, a transfer from Service High School, hit from past the arc and JDHS senior Ben Sikes scored inside off an assist from classmate Pedrin Saceda-Hurt, Colony’s Whitworth followed another shot for a 7-2 lead.<\/p>\n
“Lockard is a good player,” Casperson said. “Good kid, plays hard, does some things very well. We didn’t defend him. We knew he was a shooter, and we gave him too much space. Even the few times we did get out to pressure him, he put the ball on the floor and beat us with some buckets there, too. He’s got a nice game on him and he made us work. We made some adjustments in the second half and defended him better.”<\/p>\n
JDHS would hold Lockard to just four points in the second half, but in the first half the Crimson Bears were trying to find the intensity they usually bring to the defensive end of the court.<\/p>\n
Colony sophomore Mylz Mongeau hit a pair of free throws and Lockard hit again from past the arc for a 10-point lead, 12-2.<\/p>\n
JDHS would exchange baskets as senior Ahmir Parker floated in a shot and Colony’s Whitworth followed another miss to score.<\/p>\n
JDHS junior Joren Gasga scored on a rebound, and Colony senior Ridge Spencer returned the hard work inside for a 16-6 lead.<\/p>\n
Another rebound by Colony freshman Charlie Gardner gave the home team an 18-6 advantage until JDHS’ Saceda-Hurt drained a deep shot to pull within 18-9.<\/p>\n
Colony worked for a last shot and Lockard hit his third shot past the arc for a 21-9 lead.<\/p>\n
JDHS would hit one of three free throws as the clock expired and trailed 21-10 after eight minutes of action.<\/p>\n
JDHS senior Gavin Gerrin hit a left-handed scoop shot to open the second quarter and close the Crimson Bears’ deficit to nine points at 21-12, but Colony’s Lockard found a rhythm and hit two straight shots from past the arc and another closer in for a 29-12 advantage.<\/p>\n
JDHS junior Elias Dybdahl worked inside for a score and Parker hit for another, but Colony answered with a steal and two free throws by junior Malik Balmes, and Whitworth rebounded another miss to take a 33-16 lead.<\/p>\n
An exchange of baskets led to JDHS sophomore Logan Carriker hitting two free throws to close the Crimson Bears to 35-21 at the half.<\/p>\n
Casperson noted the hard work from starters Parker, Sikes, Gasga, Saceda-Hurt and junior Brandon Casperson as well as his faith in bringing in any Crimson Bears player off the bench.<\/p>\n
“We keep improving every game,” coach Casperson said. “Gavin has some experience for us and he came off the bench and we appreciate him in that role, and he ended up being our second-leading scorer tonight…Logan, he got fouled a few times and that is something we consider an efficiency point if you can draw fouls on the opponent. That puts them in different rotations and puts ourselves on the free throw line, and he got to the line eight times and that is good…I thought Elias was very active for us in spurts, moving without the ball and he blocked a couple shots tonight, did well on rebounding.”<\/p>\n
Colony used an 8-3 run to open the third quarter to lead 42-24 and after JDHS’ Dybdahl scored inside the Knights went on a 9-2 run to end the stanza with a 51-28 advantage.<\/p>\n
Colony’s Gardner rebounded a shot inside to open the fourth quarter and JDHS’ Casperson answered with a runner to trail 53-30.<\/p>\n
The Knights could not capitalize on two steals, but neither could the Crimson Bears.<\/p>\n
Colony continued their thievery as Mongeau hit from past the arc, and Lockard stole a pass and converted on a layup for a 58-30 advantage with 5:52 left.<\/p>\n
Colony rotated out their roster spots and JDHS put in a hard charge led by a Gasga shot past the arc, hard work by Carriker inside that drew two free throws and baskets by Gerrin and junior Kurt Kuppert to close to 60-40 with four minutes remaining.<\/p>\n
A 14-6 run by the Crimson Bears brought JDHS to within 10 points, 64-54, as the buzzer sounded. The Crimson Bears outscored the Knights 26-13 in the stanza.<\/p>\n
“We have to compete harder, sooner,” coach Casperson said. “I feel like we did compete in that fourth quarter. The guys that came in late in the game for us gave us a lift and played with a little bit of fire. If I’m being honest, I’m struggling right now finding what it is that motivates our guys to play hard consistently, not just picking and choosing spots. You know, the game of basketball is all about mistakes. So we are going to make mistakes. It is what you do after you make a mistake that matters most. Sometimes tonight we had a turnover and just kind of stopped and they thought our teammates were going to cover up for us. When we had a shot we took that didn’t go in, we didn’t sprint back. It was some of those types of things. We didn’t block out at times. You get exposed in those situations against a team that plays a similar style but plays harder.”<\/p>\n
Gasga led the Crimson Bears with 10 points, Gerrin added nine, Dybdahl six, Parker, Casperson, Kuppert and junior Tyler Frisby five each, Carriker four, Saceda-Hurt three and Sikes two.<\/p>\n
JDHS hit 12-22 from the free throw line, Colony 10-16.<\/p>\n
Lockard led the Knights with a game-high 21 points, Mongeau had 14, Whitworth nine, Gardner eight, senior Jordan Sterling four, senior Nick Bailey three, Balmes and senior Ridge Spencer two apiece and junior Nile Deland one.<\/p>\n
“Games are numbered for these teams, and I have to help them realize somehow, someway that too many missed opportunities can really sink a season,” coach Casperson said. “We are definitely not throwing in the towel. We just need to reassess and figure out what it is going to take to get us all on the same page and all working hard and playing for each other again, consistently. Our guys don’t quit, I’ll give them that, but the consistency isn’t there yet and that’s on me…”<\/p>\n
Colony improves to 6-4 overall and 1-1 in the 4A Northern Lights Conference.<\/p>\n
JDHS, 5-8 overall and 0-2 in the 4A Southeast Conference, will continue in the Colony Basketball Classic facing 4A Mid Alaska Conference leader Monroe on Friday and undefeated 4A Cook Inlet Conference leader East Anchorage on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“If you look at the lineup here, there are four potential state tournament teams at this four-team tournament,” coach Casperson said. “And three of the top five teams in the state are here.”<\/p>\n
Defending state champion East is ranked first in the state to date, Grace Christian (NLC 2nd) is second, Colony third, West Anchorage (CIC 2nd) fourth and Monroe fifth.<\/p>\n
“This is exactly where we want to be in terms of an opportunity to evaluate where we need to get better,” coach Casperson said. “And I think these teams are definitely going to provide that for us. We are getting a lot of lessons.”<\/p>\n
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com-<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Knights of the round ball drain threes, control battle of the boards. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":957,"featured_media":115078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[203,240],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-115077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-sports","tag-sportbasketball","tag-high-school-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115077"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=115077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}