What a deal! This past Thursday evening, for $3, you could have experienced a pep band, cheerleaders, a dance team, an a cappella singing group performing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” popcorn and a competitive basketball game between the Haines High School Glacier Bears Girls and the Glennallen Lady Panthers.
From the game start, Haines seemed determined to establish their speed. Their players would get a defensive rebound and sprint for their end, and found mixed offensive success when they arrived at or near their own basket.
But Haines doesn’t hesitate to shoot, and when you shoot a lot, sometimes it goes in.
Senior Ari’el Godinez-Long looked a step ahead with a player’s mentality: using speed, strength and skills to score, steal, rebound and assist. She had willpower. Senior Emma Dohrn sunk some shots, grabbed rebounds and helped carry the ball up the court.
The score at the end of the first quarter was 8-4.
Haines played like a team, letting their star do her thing. They got back on defense and kept the lead going into halftime, 16-13.
In the second half, they came out playing press defense, guarding the ball closely from the moment it came in bounds. The risk-reward strategy didn’t seem to do much, as their talented opponents passed the ball over the press on to easier shots at their end. In this case, the team’s press didn’t seem to do much, but it didn’t hurt anything
The crowd of about 90 people – I counted – was getting its money’s worth with the close game. Halfway through the third quarter, a Haines player, Talis Swaner, went down with an injury after pulling a defensive rebound by the free-throw line. She ducked her head, ran dribbling through two Glennallen players and bolted for her own basket at the other end as a Glennallen player ran full speed beside her. Ten feet away from her basket, Swaner shot as the Glennallen player attempted to block. Their bodies collided and tumbled into the wall.
The Glennallen player jogged back to her bench. Swaner did not. In pain from a dislocated knee, she screamed and the gym went quiet.
A kerfuffle in front of the scorer’s table then ended with a technical foul on Haines’ coach and another on a fan — the injured player’s mother — who was expelled from the gym for coming onto the court, referee Matt Jones said.
Glennallen was awarded four technical free throws, which they made.
Then, with a minute and 27 seconds to go, and the Haines team down by 1 point, 29-30, Godinez-Long was fouled and went to the free-throw line.
She calmly made both free throws, bringing the team 1 point ahead – and that, folks, is what it takes to win.
Although the game wasn’t over just then. With end-game excitement pulsing through the air, Haines managed another basket, gaining a 3-point lead.
With 12 seconds to go, the Glennallen team brought the ball down and a chance to get a 3-point shot to tie the game.
Glennallen standout Cheyenne Fields – who at the end of the third period made a beautiful swish shot from way out right – had a chance to shoot. Instead, she passed to a teammate and ran down the lane and over toward the sideline.
The pass came to her, but it was too wide. She caught it while her foot was on the sideline, out of bounds. Haines ball. Game over. Final score, 34-30.
Proving one of this reporter’s theories of how to win in basketball: The other team will mess up, you just have to play tough until they do.
Friday evening’s game was more of the same. Godinez-Long looked like a college player among high schoolers.
No one on Glennallen could slow her down. Her teammates played well enough to not mess up.
In the third quarter, Haines was ahead by a dozen points and looked like a sporty skiff running smoothly on Chilkoot Lake. They stalled a bit, and Glennallen got within 4 points. Then Haines senior Ashlyn Ganey came through with two 3-point shots from the side to get her team the win. Final score, 41-35.
Coach Coleman Stanford said the team is on an upward trend. “That’s where we want to be,” he said. “We’re coming together as a team at the right time, four games to go and then the tournament.”
The next games are this weekend, Feb. 14-15; the team is hosting Petersburg.
The Haines boys’ team traveled to Juneau to play the Juneau reserves
Friday, winning 55-29. They played again on Saturday and won 55-23.
Joe Parnell has lived a life that could have been a Wide World of Sports episode. He was a four-year letterman in tennis in high school, walked on as a football quarterback for Vanderbilt and Ohio universities and made the teams and practiced a lot. He was on the ski team at the University of Alaska Southeast. He surfed the north shore of Hawaii for a year, he worked out with a semi-pro Australian rules football team for a season. He got his 10,000 hours on fields, courts, and rec centers playing basketball, soccer, racquetball, tennis, dodgeball, golf, etc. He has won three gold medals at the famous Gold Medal Basketball Tournament in Juneau and won gold medals in pickleball at the Alaska Senior Games in Fairbanks this past summer. He lives for a good match.