Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé and Thunder Mountain High School will participate in the regional basketball championships beginning Tuesday night. <\/p>\n
The Thunder Mountain boys and JDHS girls are each the No. 1 seed in their respective brackets. TMHS girls and JDHS boys are the No. 3 seed for their brackets. Ketchikan is No. 2 in both cases. <\/p>\n
“You know, I think everybody’s excited,” said TMHS boys coach John Blasco in a phone interview. “Everyone’s excited to get back on the floor and play. I think we’ve had a decent season but this is what it all comes down to: The opportunity to go to states.”<\/p>\n
That hunger is echoed by other coaches, whose teams are also raring to go.<\/p>\n
“We’re gonna fight, scratch and claw and do everything we can within the rules to be successful,” said JDHS boys coach Robert Casperson in a phone interview. “I think they’re pretty excited. They’re looking forward to playing on their own court.”<\/p>\n
The JDHS girls are recovering from some injuries, including one of the team’s top players, Kendyl Carson.<\/p>\n
“I think that we’re feeling pretty good,” coach Steve Potter said in a phone interview. “A couple girls are sick today so that’s a little worrisome. Hopefully, they’ll all be healed up by Wednesday.”<\/p>\n
TMHS girl’s coach Andy Lee repeated the sentiment.<\/p>\n
“We’re excited about our chances,” Lee said in a phone interview. “We’re reasonably healthy. I’m ready to go.”<\/p>\n
Ketchikan has proved a worthy opponent for all teams, boys and girls, in the past. That familiarity might help, Potter said. “<\/p>\n
We’re certainly familiar with Ketchikan. We’re certainly familiar with Thunder Mountain,” Potter said. “The records don’t really matter.”<\/p>\n
Casperson said that even more than playing on their home court, playing at home and having access to their own beds will help performance.<\/p>\n
“I would say home bed makes more of a difference than anything for these kids,” Casperson said. “I do think that it’s important to get that rest so you can recover.”<\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757.621.1197 or mlockett@juneauempire.com. <\/em><\/p>\n Boys<\/strong><\/p>\n JDHS v. Ketchikan: Tuesday, 8:15 p.m<\/p>\n TMHS v. Round 1 winner: Wednesday, 8:15 p.m<\/p>\n Girls<\/strong><\/p>\n TMHS v. Ketchikan: Tuesday, 6:30 p.m<\/p>\n JDHS v. Round 1 winner: Wednesday, 6:30 p.m<\/p>\n All games will be hosted at JDHS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" JDHS and TMHS will vie with Ketchikan and each other. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":59018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[203,240,75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-59017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-sportbasketball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59017","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\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59017"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=59017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}