The Barrow and Sitka high school girls basketball teams met Saturday afternoon in search of the same thing.<\/p>\n
A Princess Cruises Capital City Classic win.<\/p>\n
The Lady Whalers and Lady Wolves slogged through the first two days of the tournament without a win, and each were hungry to show what they can do against comparably-sized school.<\/p>\n
“We played really good two 4A (large schools) teams — Juneau and East (Anchorage) High School — they gave us confidence going into this game against a 3A opponent,” Barrow coach Aniseko Unutoa said.<\/p>\n
That confidence translated into eight made 3-pointers as the Lady Whalers took down Sitka 58-50 to finish the Classic 1-2. Sitka remained winless at 0-3.<\/p>\n
The game marked the beginning of the end of the tournament that gathered well over 100 student-athletes, coaches and fans to Juneau for three days of holiday hoops at the Juneau-Douglas High School gymnasium. On the side, teams boarded a bus together to the Mendenhall Glacier, showcased their skills in a dunk contest and took pictures in front of the Carlos Boozer Jr. jersey plaque hung prominently on one of the gym walls.<\/p>\n
Senior guard Jordan Ahgeak led the Lady Whalers with 17 points. Ahgeak’s aggressiveness was rewarded with five trips to the foul line where she shot 7-of-10.<\/p>\n
The Lady Wolves faced a 16-point deficit to begin the fourth quarter, but managed to hang around thanks to the strong play of Abby Forrester. The 5-foot-10-inch senior forward scored 11 of Sitka’s 18 points in the final period, shooting 7-of-8 from the foul line.<\/p>\n
Sitka made it an eight-point game midway through the fourth quarter, but Barrow quickly regained a double-digit advantage.<\/p>\n
“We’re putting some young kids in some spots that are fairly pressure-filled,” Sitka coach Sondra Lundvick said. “They’re getting better and so it’s still December and hope to be playing till late-March, so we’ll see.”<\/p>\n
Despite not winning the game, the Lady Wolves doubled their offensive production from their previous two losses to Juneau-Douglas (25 points) and East Anchorage (28 points). Lundvick said it was unfortunate they couldn’t score the ball on Friday in a 38-28 loss like they did on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“Normally, if you hold a team to under 40 points, you’re going to win the game,” she said. “We just couldn’t throw it in the ocean, we just couldn’t get a bucket to fall.”<\/p>\n
In the second Capital City Classic game on Saturday, the Barrow boys defeated Lathrop 76-68.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.<\/b><\/p>\n
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