The Sitka Wolves bent but refused to break in a game that was closer than the final score would indicate.
The Juneau-Douglas High School boys basketball team scored 20 points or more in every quarter on Tuesday during day two of the Capital City Classic to best Sitka 81-63 at home.
JDHS senior guard Guy Bean scored 11 of the Crimson Bears’ first 13 points on his way to a game-high 24 points on the night.
“I was just hot, I don’t really know how to describe it,” Bean said. “I was just confident of my shot. Coach told us to take higher-percentage shots, so that was part of it, and then we started trapping and we got a lot of steals and fast-break opportunities that led to layups.”
JDHS senior guard Treyson Ramos scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half to energize the Crimson Bears. Senior Kaleb Tompkins had 13 points on the night and sophomore forward Erik Kelly added 12 off the bench.
“These guys are pretty dynamic,” JDHS coach Robert Casperson said. “Treyson brought a lot of life to the team today, a lot of energy and he had a really great game for us.”
Said Bean: “Most of the time it is Kaleb, he’s our leading scorer for sure, but when he’s not doing it somebody else can do it. We have a full team of scorers.”
The Crimson Bears had no solution for stopping Sitka’s 6-foot-7 junior Jesse Lantiegne down low. Lantiegne had 20 points, about half coming from offensive rebounds, and senior Tevin Bayne caught a hot-hand in the second half, scoring 16 of his team-high 22 points.
“They’re a very good team. They’re a quality team and a good opponent for us to get early in the season,” Casperson said. “They tested us in different ways. Bayne did a real nice job for them tonight and (Lantiegne) was difficult inside. We’ll see them three more times this season.”
Sitka coach Andy Lee said Tuesday’s game was a “measuring stick” for his team, which plays in the 3A division. JDHS is 4A.
“We never quit,” Lee said. “Now we have a measuring stick, and we hope to build on this. At the end of the day, we did things today to prepare for our competition. We went out and got great competition and played to the end. I saw good things from our team from a competitive standpoint.”
Lee also said he was pleased with what he saw from Lantiegne, who was the dominant big man on the night.
“He’s growing leaps and bounds and teams are having to focus on him, and he has to learn to respond to being doubled and trippled,” he said. “We’ve got a horse to ride, and we just have to figure out we can’t ride him to death and you have to be selective. In the second half we didn’t do as good a job as we could have giving him the ball.”
The Crimson Bears took an early 20-15 lead after the first quarter, and extended it to 40-29 at halftime. But the Wolves refused to let the game get out of hand until the final minutes of the contest, trading baskets with JDHS for most of the next two quarters. Sitka cut the lead to 68-58 with five minutes remaining, but that was the closest they would get.
“That experience is shining through,” Casperson said. “You can’t fake confidence. For a high school team to get up into the 80s in a competitive game, that doesn’t happen often.”
JDHS shot 7-of-12 from the free throw line, with Sitka making 4-of-18.
KENTLAKE 82, HYDABURG 27
Kentlake High School scored more points in the first quarter than out-matched Hydaburg scored the entire game.
Led by Austin McBryde’s game-high 18 points, Kentlake, of Washington, had little trouble besting Hydaburg, 82-27.
Kentlake took a 48-23 lead into the half, and extended it to 76-27 after three. Hydaburg was held scoreless in the fourth.
Trey Helgseson had 14 for Kentlake, followed by 13 from Kevin Baker and nine from Justin Olson. Sidney Warren-Edenshaw and Nick Nix led Hydaburg with six points each.
Juneau-Douglas’ Kaleb Tompkins passes over Sitka’s Tevin Bayne during the Princess Cruises Alaska Airlines Capital City Classic at JDHS on Tuesday. Juneau won 81-63.
