TMHS boys’ basketball scores pair of double-digit wins over Sitka

The Thunder Mountain High School boys basketball team, after coasting to a 64-47 win over Sitka High School on Friday night, found itself deadlocked 37-37 midway through the third quarter during a rematch Saturday night at TMHS. But the Falcons then went on an 18-0 run and held off Sitka’s late attempts at a rally en route to a 61-49 final score.

After Sitka narrowed the lead to 55-43 with 3:20 left in the fourth quarter Saturday, the Falcons’ Samuel Lockhart, a 5’10” senior guard, hit a 3-point shot, stole Sitka’s inbound pass and hit a second 3-point shot seconds later to extend the margin back to 18. Lockhart led TMHS scorers in the game with 20 points, including four 3-pointers.

“He’s a solid shooter for us and what I like about his game right now is he’s playing a lot on the defense, and getting a lot of deflections and getting a lot of defensive rebounds,” TMHS Head Coach John Blasco said after Saturday’s game. “I mean he’s just kind of all over the floor.

Senior forward James Polasky and senior guard Thomas Baxter also scored in double figures for the Falcons with 13 points each.

Playing an effective full-court pressure defense after a timeout when the score was tied in the third quarter is what led to the scoring run that lasted well into the fourth quarter, Blasco said.

“They all committed to picking up full together and they applied a lot of pressure,” he said. “And we were able to force some turnovers, we got some great steals at about mid-court which got us some layups and guys were able to finish, which was exciting. We started knocking down some threes off of some turnovers. They were able to capitalize on quite a bit of defense in the full-court pressure.”

However, up until that point Sitka played far tougher than on Friday, when TMHS took an early lead and extended it steadily throughout the game. On Saturday the Falcons occasionally took leads of a half-dozen points or so, only to see the Wolves close the gap repeatedly.

Much of that was due to Sitka’s Trey Johnson, a sophomore center who led all scorers Saturday with 31 points.

“They kept getting deep post-ups for him and he was able to finish at the rim,” Blasco said.

Also making a difference was Sitka had more of a chance to rest compared to Friday when they had to travel to Juneau.

“Their game plan today was much more downhill on us and I just don’t think we were ready for it,” Blasco said. “We probably had nine turnovers in the first half, which is on us to clean up our game. I knew they were going to come ready to play today. Yesterday was a travel day — while it’s only a 28-minute flight from Sitka they still have to get up at 4 a.m. to get to the airport — so we knew that today it’d be tougher.”

Polasky led all scorers in Friday’s game with 26 points, while Trey Demmert led Sitka with 14 points.

The Falcons, 6-3 this season, next play at Chugiak High School on Wednesday and then in the Wolverine Classic Tournament at South Anchorage High School starting Thursday.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.