Haines senior Tyler Swinton outpaces Wrangell sophomore Devon Miller to the basket in the final seconds of the Glacier Bears’ game Monday night.
Wolves and bears are usually docile during blizzards. But that wasn’t the case Monday and Tuesday evening when Wrangell made a belated trip to Haines.
When players are coached to be as physical as the referees allow, there’s going to be contact and this turned out to be a rough series. Fortunately, the players are so athletic that they avoided harmful collisions and there were no injuries.
Haines prevailed Monday, 48-47, in a game that wasn’t decided until the last seconds. Senior Tyler Swinton made a clutch three-pointer to give the Bears a 1-point lead. In a rush to the other end of the court, Swinton then intercepted an errant pass with four seconds left and dunked it just after the buzzer.
Swinton led the balanced scoring with 11. Classmates Logan Simpson had 9 (three treys), Brandon Haxton scored 8, Devin Braaten, 7 and Parker Schnabel, 2. Junior Caullen Taylor scored 4 and sophomore Devin Light put up 3.
Tuesday night Haines led all the way and outscored the Wolves 44-28 in the second half to win, 69-46. There were 57 free-throw attempts by both teams.
Swinton led all scorers with 23, Light lit it up with three makes outside the arc and ended with 13, Braaten made some nice cuts to the hoop for 10, Simpson was calm and cool at the point guard position with 8, Schnabel split the defense three times on layups to finish with 7, and 2 points each for Haxton, Taylor, Olsen and Fischer.
In JV action Wrangell staged a strong comeback, scoring 24 of their 47 points in the fourth period to win 47-44 Monday. On Tuesday, Haines prevailed leading all the way, 35-22.
The Lady Glacier Bears scored 61 to Wrangell’s 44 on Friday. The Bears racked up 25 points in the third period, including three treys from senior Hannah Wing, who finished with 22 points. Fellow senior Marnie Rasmussen had 6 points; Amey Messerschmidt, 9 and Ashley Messerschmidt, 13.
Junior Riley Erekson scored 6 from the line, going 6-8. Sophomore Libby Jacobson and juniors Jess Giddings and Alisha Young scored one each. Haines took 43 shots from the free-throw stripe, converting 21.
On Saturday the girls came out lethargic in warm-ups and continued to play that way against the Wolves, losing 48-38.
Senior Anna Jacobson made two three-pointers and finished with 8 points. Ashley Messerschmidt led the scoring with 10; Amey Mersserschmidt, 9; Erekson, 8; Wing, 3.
In JV action, freshman Celia Bower poured in 37 points over the team’s two wins, with a score Friday of 37-29 and 44-43 on Saturday. Junior Jess Giddings scored the final 2 points in overtime to seal the win. She apparently suffered a concussion during the game and will not play for 10 days on doctor’s orders.
The boys’ team left on the ferry Wednesday headed to Craig. The girls will be here as the Panthers come to town.