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.
Yakutat and Angoon faced off for one more game against one another in the Women’s Bracket to determine who would advance to Saturday’s championship game against Prince of Wales in this year’s Gold Medal Basketball Tournament at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé.
Angoon played with a lot of heart but as the game progressed, Yakutat managed to stay in front by at least 15 points for the last three quarters for a 50-33 finish.
Yakutat’s Trinity Jackson said she’s excited to be going on to the final game on Saturday, especially because this was her first experience in playing on a Gold Medal team. Jackson was previously a standout on the JDHS girls basketball team.
“I love playing with these girls,” Jackson said. “All of us are very comfortable with each other, we all trust each other with the ball and we don’t have to worry about anyone throwing it away because of the level of trust we all have. For Saturday, we’ll be more focused on more boxing out and making sure we shut down their dribblers, No. 23 Michaela Demmert on POW is really good, they have a lot of talent on that team, so it’s just a matter of shutting down their main players and getting our offense and defense together.”
Nadine Fraker led in scoring for Yakutat with 13 points, and for Angoon, Frances Dowd led with 8 points.
Yakutat now advances to Saturday’s championship game at 2 p.m. against Prince of Wales.
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
