The Juneau-Douglas High School girls basketball team (3-8, 2-2 SEC) hosts its first home games in three weeks Friday and Saturday.
The Crimson Bears take the floor against Fairbanks’ Lathrop High School at 7:15 p.m. both nights.
After a rough 1-6 start to the season, JDHS is 2-2 in its last four games. Coach Lesslie Knight’s team swept Thunder Mountain at the beginning of the month but lost both its games last weekend against Ketchikan.
Lathrop is coming off a strong outing in the Joe T. Classic tournament. The Malamutes lost 65-43 to Colony on Saturday after defeating Thunder Mountain and Monroe Catholic by 14 and 40 points respectively earlier in the week.
Even splitting the series this weekend against Lathrop would give the Crimson Bears’ some much-needed confidence. The team hasn’t fared well against top-tier Alaskan opponents East Anchorage, Chugiak and Ketchikan so far this season.
Freshman guard Kiana Potter said the team struggles in the second half of games. With only three players on the bench, it’s not hard to see why either.
“We really need to get over that and be able to play at the highest level we can for the entire game,” Potter said Tuesday at the beginning of practice. “I think that’s hard because our bench is not deep. But I think it’s definitely something we can accomplish by the end of the season.”
Potter is expected to start the next two weeks in junior Alyxn Bohulano’s stead, who is on personal travel. If this is the case, the team will have two freshmen guards as starters: Potter and Janae Pusich.
Impressed by her defense, Knight has relied on Pusich to shut down opposing guards.
“We used Georgia (Robinson) and some others in the past mainly for their defense but I think people will be surprised at what a defensive person Janae Pusich is going to be,” Knight said at the start of the season.
Both Potter and Pusich have benefited from a having a close bond on the team before joining it themselves — Potter in her dad, assistant coach Steve Potter; Pusich in her older sister, junior guard Caitlin Pusich.
“She really helped me a lot,” Janae Pusich said of older sister Caitlin. “During the summer at open gym, she was teaching me what was going to be expected, what I should get better at.”
The young Potter is also accustomed to receiving feedback from family members. Her dad has coached at JDHS for over two decades and her mom has also coached previously at the school. However, Potter said she isn’t normally overwhelmed by the feedback her parents and coaches offer her: the game is her passion.
“I’m definitely held to a higher standard now,” Potter said. “Like in middle school basketball, the intensity level was way lower, the coaching was not nearly as intense. I love high school basketball way more now. I like how intense the competition is and how serious everything is.”
All three other Juneau prep basketball teams are off this weekend.
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.
