The Haines boys’ basketball team finished its regular season with two strong wins over visiting Craig last weekend.
The victories raise the team’s final regular season record to 5-19 and serve as a confidence boost heading into the Southeast Regional Basketball Tournament in Juneau, starting Tuesday.
Senior point guard Jacob Stigen is surely emboldened. “I feel we have a very strong chance to show other teams what we have and prove to Metlakatla and Petersburg that they will not be walking out of there unscathed,” he said.
Anyone even remotely competitive appreciates that kind of bravado. The task now is to back it up.
Last Friday night’s game was a 60-46 victory, but it was Saturday night’s game, a 60-40 win, that amounted to perhaps the team’s best overall season effort.
Three players reached double figures in scoring (Kirby Faverty, 10, Hudson Sage, 10, and Dylan Swinton, 15) and another three notched at least six points. Eight of 11 Haines players scored.
In addition, the team’s energy on the court and on the bench was exceptional. It was obvious the team was truly supporting each other.
Asked his thoughts about the total team effort, Coach Steve Fossman was so pleased he was almost at a loss for words.
“Yeah, no I…I uh…yeah…it’s been a long time since we’ve seen that,” Fossman said, with an unstoppable grin. “I think it’s guys that are just settling in and buying into being patient on offense and getting good, really good shots.”
Fossman also spoke about freshman Kirby Faverty, whose emergence this weekend as a competent, confident ball-handler took pressure off Dylan Swinton and Jacob Stigen, the team’s primary ball-handlers.
“We’ve known all year that Kirby’s got great skills, but he hasn’t let that come out enough, or as much as we might have hoped earlier in the year. But, it’s a big boost for us having him play like that two games in a row,” Fossman said.
As the team prepares for the regional tournament, it should take confidence from hitting its stride at just the right moment.
The fifth-seeded Haines team may face Craig in the opening round of the tournament, so it must guard against overconfidence. But for now, it has great energy to build on and some strong momentum to ride.