Basketball fans witnessed an energetic, scrappy and winning Haines girls’ basketball squad last weekend at home against the Wrangell Wolves. The Glacier Bears girls team, currently ranked second in their division and first in the region, have battled back from a long dry spell.
The Glacier Bears saw their first bright spot last year winning their first conference game since 2016. Because of travel complications and covid cancellations, the girls only played four conference games last year and finished the season 2-2.
This season, they’re dominating, going undefeated with a 4-0 record. In both games against Wrangell, the Bears maintained a full court press that smothered their opponents and forced dozens of turnovers. Three Haines players stole the ball from the Wolves more than 20 times on Friday night . The full court press is new this year, said head coach Coleman Stanford, and is key to his team’s newfound success.
“The girls have never shied away from hard work, which is basically what a press is,” Stanford said. “It’s just hard work. They never quit. The press is a perfect tool for a team with that mentality.”
Of the roughly 100 points the Bears girls scored during the series, more than half were a result of turnovers caused by their high-pressure defense.
“The intent of a press is to create chaos and disrupt the flow,” Stanford said. “Even if we don’t get steals, just making their life harder, harder to get the ball down the floor, is already a success. The points off turnovers in those situations really come as a bonus.”
The team makes up for their lack of height by speed and grit. The Bears’ two post players pulled down 19 rebounds Friday.
“Most of those stats speak heavily to effort, just pure effort, and hard work,” Stanford said. “That’s something I’m happy to take against any team in the state at this point.”
The girls defeated Wrangell 48-33 on Friday night and 53-38 on Saturday. In early January, they axed the Vikings, 58-18 and 34-23.
Seniors leading the team include MacKenzy Dryden, Grace Long Godinez, Alison Benda and Malia Jorgenson-Geise.
Long Godinez credited the success to a maturing team, a deep bench that helps sustain the pressure defense and solid coaches.
“My freshman year we had eight players on a good day. Now we have a full roster for practice. Being able to sub people is great,” she said. “We have a lot of sophomores that have really stepped up. Last year I don’t think we could have successfully pressed a full game. This year we’re in good shape to do that.”
Long Godinez said her goal is nothing short of winning regionals and competing at the state championship, a goal her peers have long worked for. “For a lot of the seniors it’s like we’re proving ourselves and our work. We worked our butts off all four years, and it’s been hard to stay motivated. It’s nice to see our work pay off and get the results.”
The Lady Bears will compete at the Rally for Denali basketball tournament in Talkeetna this week where they will face off against teams from larger regions.
“It’s going to be a good gauge as to where we stand in the rest of the state,” Stanford said.
The boys squad went 1-1 against the Wolves this weekend, winning 61-44 on Friday night and losing 34-53 Saturday night. The boys’ record stands at 1-3 after they fell twice to the Petersburg Vikings in early January.
Head coach Don Nash said his team performed well Friday night, but struggled to break Wrangell’s zone defense on Saturday, when the Wolves’ star player, out with an injury Friday, was back in the game.
“We just couldn’t crack it during the game,” Nash said. “We tried making adjustments. They’re tough. They don’t look tough because some of the kids are skinny and little, but they don’t give up and they keep coming at you.”
Nash said he’s working on building confidence in his younger players to take open shots.
“We have two players that will shoot when they get open and seven or eight that haven’t felt confident yet consider themselves to be shooters,” Nash said. “We encourage them to shoot.”
Like the Glacier Bears girls, Nash said his squad has a full roster made up of players who don’t quit, led by seniors Luke Davis and Eric Gilham.
“Even though we do have five seniors this year, there’s good-looking players coming up that will keep the team alive and well. Our biggest strength is we have two all-state players in Luke and Eric,” Nash said.
The boys’ team will also be playing in this week’s tournament in Talkeetna.
