Sophomore Erica Smith pushes past her Juneau opponent during the Lady Wolves’ home game Friday night.
After stealing the basketball from an opponent, Mykayla Rooney runs to the basket and scores for the Lady Wolves during Friday’s home game against Juneau.
Wrangell’s varsity girls basketball team beat Juneau twice on home court over the weekend. The final home game of the season, and the last games of the regular season, gave the Lady Wolves the opportunity to try out new plays and defensive strategies that could be used during the regional tournament in Ketchikan next week, said head coach Dave Silva.
The Lady Wolves beat the Lady Crimson Bears 52-20 Friday and 40-32 Saturday.
“We came up pretty hard Friday night,” Silva said. “I just think we overwhelmed them.”
Wrangell senior Loni Buness led the Lady Wolves in points Friday night, scoring 24 during the game. Junior Mykayla Rooney scored eight points and junior MiKayla Stokes scored seven.
Buness also led her team in scoring Saturday night, adding 14 points to the scoreboard for the Lady Wolves. Stokes scored nine points, and junior Alyssa Allen scored eight. Saturday night was also Senior Night, and Silva said the team tried to make sure Buness shone since she’s the team’s sole senior player.
“It was really kind of Loni’s night for us to try to get the ball into her as much as we can,” he said.
Silva also noted some impressive play from the team’s guards, including Stokes, Allen and Rooney. Freshman Darian Meissner also played a lot of good minutes during the game, Silva said.
On Saturday, the Lady Wolves were testing new plays to see how well they adjusted on the court. That gave Silva the opportunity to see what the team needs to work on in practice to prepare for Regionals.
The regional tournament takes place March 1-4. The Lady Wolves head to Ketchikan Monday, which gives the players time to recover from traveling before playing a game, and the chance to practice on Ketchikan’s court, Silva said.
Wrangell won’t know their standing until after the weekend when teams finish playing their final games of the regular season, Silva said. He believes the Lady Wolves will be vying for fifth or sixth place at Regionals.
Silva and junior varsity coach Carly Allen said the junior varsity Lady Wolves have shown an immense amount of improvement throughout the season. Silva said he and Allen have noted how far the junior varsity players have come in the course of the season. Over the weekend, the team played good defense and ran offensive plays well and “played like a basketball team,” Silva said.
“And that was fun for us to see,” he said.
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