The Thunder Mountain High School boys basketball team ended the Mt. McKinley Bank Holiday Classic with a win on Saturday afternoon.
The Falcons exceeded their point total from their prior game partway through the third quarter, cruising to a 71-59 win over Lathrop at Monroe Catholic High School’s Boileau Hall in Fairbanks.
Junior Bryson Echiverri scored 23 points, the most of the eight Falcons’ scorers, to help the team rebound from 21-point loss to Colony the day before. Junior Brady Carandang and senior Hansel Hinckle chipped in 11 respective points and Puna Toutaiolepo had eight points.
Lathrop got 12 points from Kyler Hall and nine from Jayce Johnson in the loss.
Thunder Mountain slowly built on a nine-point first quarter lead, going into halftime up 36-25 and the fourth quarter 52-38.
Monroe Catholic and Colony squared off in the tournament’s championship game on Saturday night. The Rams and Knights both entered Saturday 2-0, with shared wins over Lathrop and Thunder Mountain. Colony was the more dominant team of the two in those wins, waxing Lathrop, 57-25, and TMHS, 57-36.
The Falcons get two more stabs at Colony, the No. 1 boys team in the latest Alaska Association of Basketball Coaches poll, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at TMHS. The TMHS and Colony girls play just before both games at 6:15 p.m. Downtown, the Juneau-Douglas boys take on conference rival Ketchikan on Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
