The Juneau-Douglas High School men's varsity basketball team had little trouble in sweeping a pair of games in Sitka this weekend, beating the Wolves 88-73 on Friday and 92-69 on Saturday.
The pair of Region V-opening victories increased Juneau's win streak to nine games this season and to 25 games dating back to Jan. 23 of last season. On that date, the Bears lost in overtime by two points to East Anchorage in the semifinals of the Alaska Prep Shootout, capping a rough four-losses-in-five-games stretch.
Ironically, and rather eerily, the Bears match up with East Anchorage next Saturday - Jan. 23 - in the final round of the T-Bird Classic at East Anchorage High School.
The tournament kicks off Thursday with a West-Juneau matchup at 4 p.m. But if Juneau was looking ahead to that tournament, it didn't show.
The Bears dominated from Friday's opening tip to Saturday's final buzzer.
Juneau coach George Houston expressed mild concern earlier this week about his team remaining focused in Sitka - whatever worries he harbored were needless.
In Saturday's finale Juneau got 19 points from Carlos Boozer, 13 from James Wilson, 10 from Mike VanderJack, 10 from Rick Carte and nine from Christian Carpeneti to flatten the Wolves.
On Friday, Boozer had 31, Wilson had 14, Carpeneti had 12 and Carte had 12.
Houston said, though he wasn't a top scorer, Evan Tromble played very well this weekend too.
Friday's game was much more lopsided than the 15-point final margin of victory would suggest, but Houston threw the bench in and Sitka - with it's fierce, pressing defense - was able to close the gap substantially.
"We played the younger kids, it's a chance to give them some experience at the varsity level," Houston said. "It's an eye-opener for them. Sitka pushes the ball and shoots quickly, similar to their JV, they press and it's a difficult style to play against unless you're accustomed to it. Even then they can put up points in a hurry."
Still, Houston said, all in all the swing players got some good varsity experience. And it's a good thing, he said, because Sitka has an excellent group of players coming up next year.
"Our JV and C (freshmen) lost, we've got our work cut out for us next year," Houston said. "They've got a good group of kids."
But, as far as the varsity was concerned, there wasn't much to fret about.
"We played pretty well, especially our front line guys," Houston said. "I thought we played really good defense, we were really active."
Houston said that after the game on Saturday, about 50 kids and adults lined up to get an autograph from Boozer. A table was set up so that he could accommodate his growing legion of fans.
Juneau has a busy week ahead - it plays a single game against a very tough Chugiak team on Wednesday, then opens the T-Bird Classic against West on Thursday and continues Friday against North Pole at 2 p.m. before the `anniversary' game against the Thunderbirds on Saturday.
