Through two rounds, the Deishú Merchants look like a team to beat at this year’s Gold Medal basketball tournament in Juneau. 

The tournament could not have started more comfortably for Haines’ B Bracket team, which steamrolled Klawock 98-58 to open the tournament. 

The Merchants this year return a number of Gold Medal veterans, including Kyle Fossman and Tyler Swinton, who led the team in scoring against Klawock. Fossman’s 26 points came nearly all from outside shooting. Swinton, in addition to his 22 points, was a menace on the other end, where Klawock struggled to deal with his shotblocking. 

But big minutes have also been going to fresher faces: Recent Mt. Edgcumbe grad Jake Friske has taken the bulk of the primary ballhandling duties and added 10 points against Klawock. First-time Haines player Kyle Tompkins scored 14 points. And Colton Combs, just coming off his high school season with the Glacier Bears, added five. 

Rounding out the scoring against Klawock were Ryan Olsen with 10 points, James Hart with five, and Chevy Fowler four. 

On the Klawock side, only wing Nathan Yockey was able to make much of a scoring dent, leading his team with 23 points. 

The win against Klawock earned Haines a second-round game against a Hoonah team coming off a one-point win over Angoon. 

It was quickly clear, as many fans had predicted, that Hoonah would be a different sort of challenge. First evidence was from the team’s warmup, where it seemed half the Hoonah lineup was throwing down thunderous dunks. 

It was more of the same after the opening whistle, where Hoonah’s starters were able to elevate and finish at the rim. 

But it was Haines that jumped out to the early lead, with balanced scoring. Combs was the first off the bench, giving Haines a three-guard lineup with Fossman and Friske. What they gave up in size they made up for in quickness, on and off the ball — Friske in particular making inroads inside and diving for loose balls. 

Tompkins, too, left his mark on the quarter, with a sequence of back-to-back buckets and then a three-pointer made from well beyond the arc. 

Through the second quarter, Haines maintained a single-digit lead, but it didn’t feel like much of a cushion. Part of that was high-energy play from Hoonah’s Sean Oliver, RJ Didrickson, and Kayden Lamebull-Ingram. The Hoonah core was aggressive on defense and quick to run, the second quarter at times turning into something of a track meet. 

Hoonah’s Orion Dybdahl at times struggled with a tough matchup defending Swinton, but led his team in scoring with 17 points. 

In the open floor, Haines leaned on Friske, a fast ballhandler and tough finisher. But Hoonah had the athletes to more than make life difficult, with Oliver at one point chasing down and pinning a Haines layup against the backboard. 

That got a pop of noise from the crowd — the other major factor on the day. The Hoonah rooting contingent accounted for around a quarter of the packed bleachers, but nearly 100% of the noise. After the chasedown block, big Hoonah buckets, or any number of missed Haines shots, there very well could have been seismic risk: even on the gym floor you could feel the movement coming from the bleachers. 

Haines, to their credit, seemed largely unfazed. In what was certainly an away-game environment, they shot free-throws well, which paid dividends down the stretch. 

But before then, Haines had to manage a series of Hoonah runs which kept the Merchants’ lead to single digits through most of the second half. 

Much of their resilience came from the defense, which looks to be a strength of this Haines team so far. The backcourt doesn’t give up much off the dribble, and coach Steve Fossman noted after the game that even the smaller Combs holds up when teams try to target him down low with bigger players. And the team has plenty of size on the backline. 

But the offense looks smooth, even early on in the tournament. Coach Fossman said the team used the first game to practice some of their halfcourt sets, and through the Hoonah game he was vocal from the sideline, telling players to keep moving off the ball. 

“When guys are tired, as a coach I try to tell them, just keep running your routes and getting the ball,” Fossman said. “Sometimes no matter how tired you are you have to figure out how to get the ball.” 

The team showed off a number of options. Swinton, who can be a high-volume outside shooter — and was for much of the Klawock game — scoring much of his team-leading 31 points under the basket. 

The fourth quarter was a test of late-game execution. That’s not necessarily an easy task for a group that doesn’t formally practice together, or play together as a full squad, before the tournament. 

Hoonah’s Oliver was a force, trying to keep his team in it with a pair of made threes. But Haines, with an 11-point lead and three minutes to go, had the luxury of slowing the game down and managing the clock. They did it well initially. The younger Fossman, on the court, was a vocal presence directing traffic around the court. But in the closing two minutes, Haines began to slip up trying to play keep-away. That prompted a pair of timeouts from the older Fossman. 

“We were making some real fundamental mistakes, like getting caught in the corner or losing our dribble just across halfcourt,” he said afterward. 

As for what happened in the huddle, it wasn’t anything too complicated, Fossman said. 

“(At Gold Medal) you rely a lot on past basketball experience. Guys that have grown up playing the game, they know where they need to be.” 

With generally solid free-throw shooting Haines closed out the game, winning 79-71. 

Scoring leaders for Haines were Swinton with 31 points, Combs with 13, Tompkins with 11, and Friske with 11. Fossman added 3 points and Olsen 2. 

For Hoonah, outside of Dybdahl’s 17 points, Oliver added 16, Didrickson 11, Lamebull-Ingram 9, Malakai Nichols 7, Samuel Lamebull 7, Tyrell Cramer 2, and Jaylin Prince 2. 

With the win, Haines advances to a Thursday night game against Yakutat — essentially a quarterfinal. If they lose, they’ll still have one more shot to get to the Saturday night championship game through the back-door bracket.