By the fourth quarter of the Thunder Mountain High School boys basketball team’s win against Palmer High School, the only suspense left was over whether Sam Sika would score.
And just inside the fourth quarter’s 4-minute mark, the bruising, seldom-deployed senior settled that with a free throw that drew cheers from both the bleachers and the bench en route to a comfortable 61-38 TMHS win. Sika finished the game with 3 points, leading his team in scoring over the game’s final quarter.
TMHS senior Sam Sika (32) drives through contact late in a Thunder Mountain High School victory against Palmer High School. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire)
The leading scorer for the game’s other 24 minutes was junior Thomas Baxter who put up 22 points across three quarters, including 9 points in a white-hot first quarter for TMHS.
“We jumped out to an early lead,” said coach John Blasco in a post-game interview. “I think that obviously helped carry the momentum for the night. I’m not sure that I recall another time we scored 26 points in the first quarter.”
Juniors Samuel Lockhart and James Polasky also reached double-figure scoring totals with 13 and 10 points, respectively.
“The guys were finding each other in really good ways, both inside and on the perimeter, so that was really fun to watch,” Blasco said.
TMHS was also aggressive on defense, disrupting passing lanes and swatting shots that helped set up some of those fluid possessions.
Thomas Baxter puts up a shot against Palmer High School. The TMHS junior finished the game with 22 points. (Ben Hohenstatt / Juneau Empire)
“Palmer’s a young team this year, and a travel day, so we thought, ‘Let’s come out with a little bit of pressure and see if we can get ourselves going ,’ and defense leads to offense,” Blasco said.
The Falcons have now won back-to-back games, improving their record to 6-14 with a 1-3 conference record.
TMHS will have a chance to even its conference record up with games set for 7:15 p.m. Friday and Saturday against Ketchikan High School. The teams split a pair of close games late last month in Ketchikan.
• Contact Ben Hohenstatt at (907)308-4895 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.