The Juneau Empire’s expanded coverage of the Juneau Lions Club 74th Gold Medal Basketball Tournament is made possible by Sealaska Corp. Thanks to this sponsorship, this article —and all of this year’s Gold Medal coverage — is available online without a subscription to the Empire.
Hoonah survives to play another C Bracket game following a Tuesday afternoon elimination game against Yakutate in the Juneau Lions Club 74th Gold Medal Basketball Tournament.
Hoonah managed to stay at least 10 points in front of Yakutat through much of the game, which was a lead they would hold onto until the very end for a 87-75 finish, eliminating Yakutat from the C Bracket tournament.
Hoonah coach Albert Hinchman said the important thing was to come together as a team and not let the pressure of an elimination game overwhelm the task at hand.
“We had a problem yesterday during the game where we thought we weren’t gelling together,” Hinchman said. “These guys have been playing on the same team for years and we got behind a little bit and it felt like it was disrupting things. But today they put it all together and they had a lot more motion today, so they were more of a unified team out there. I feel like they trusted each other more today and that helps a lot when not everyone lives in the same town and we didn’t have a lot of playing time together. It looked a lot better today than it did yesterday.”
Travis Dybdahl led Hoonah with 17 points and Braxton Booze had 16. For Yakutat, Adam Johnson had 26 points and Jordan Gibson had 19.
Hoonah now plays either Angoon or Kake at 1 p.m on Thursday.
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
