It was not a good feeling. My first day reporting for the Juneau Empire was reaching its end, and I couldn’t string together a few sentences to save my life.<\/p>\n
A little over an hour had passed since Thunder Mountain High School’s boys basketball team, backed by Chase Saviers’ 40 points, defeated crosstown rival Juneau-Douglas High School in an early February game at JDHS.<\/p>\n
What’s going on? This story should write itself!<\/p>\n
I fumbled my way through the first 400 words of the article before retiring for the night. After doing some more writing and edits in the morning, I sent it off to my editor, just happy to be done.<\/p>\n
The following Tuesday arrived, and my first article for the Empire appeared in the paper: “Saviers drops 40 on Crimson Bears, Thunder Mountain sweeps Juneau-Douglas.”<\/p>\n
Over 10 months removed from that antsy beginning to newspaper work, and I’m more than happy to be thinking about writing about basketball again. For one, it means I’m coming up on my one-year anniversary of covering sports for the Empire.<\/p>\n
I also just really like basketball — always have. And, if last season’s drama on the hardwood was any indication, basketball likes me back. The Region V tournament in Juneau was especially memorable, such as the heated JDHS-Ketchikan boys semifinal<\/a> that saw the lights go out with the game tied at 46-46 with 1 second left in regulation.<\/p>\n I have good reason to believe this high school season, which officially began on Nov. 29, will be good to basketball-crazy reporters and fans alike.<\/p>\n The Region V Conference has proven itself as one of the most competitive in the state for both boys and girls teams. In two of the last three years, the conference has qualified two of its three teams for the state tournament. This is noteworthy because Region V, unlike other conferences up north, only receives one automatic berth to the state tournament: the conference tournament champion.<\/p>\n For the two remaining teams to make state, they must have one of the two highest winning percentage indexes (WPI) of teams not automatically qualified. The metric is calculated based on a team’s strength of schedule and record.<\/p>\n Last spring, the JDHS girls’ 17 and Ketchikan’s boys’ 16 wins against Class 4A competition helped them get in the tournament after their respective losses at regionals.<\/p>\n