The Wolves won two games over Craig High School during a pair of home games last week.
Hosting the Panthers during the middle of the week, on February 7 Wrangell started off with a close first period, Craig trailing their 14 points by two. The home team stepped up its defense in the lead-up to the half, holding Craig to another 12 points as its offense picked up 25. Leading 39-24, Wrangell kept its edge during a closely-scored second half, holding an 18-point lead by the final buzzer for a 73-55 win.
During the game Trevor Miller and Riley Blatchley led the team for points, respectively scoring 27 and 20.
“When he’s going, our whole team is going,” Wrangell coach Cody Angerman said of Blatchley.
Miller put down six of eight three-point shots during the evening, giving his team the edge it needed for the win. After scoring 16 points, senior Tymon Teat was injured during play and pulled for the rest of the weekend. On the Craig side, Drew Marker logged 33 points for the game, including 14 of 21 free throws.
In game two the next evening, Wrangell started just behind, trailing Craig 15-17 in the first period. Things soon turned around as the Wolves led for points in each of the next three periods, finishing 65-43 by the end.
As he had the previous night, Miller scored the team 27 points, while Marker led Craig’s offense with 31. With Teat out of the game, Angerman commended sophomore Skyler Lofftus for stepping up in his place.
“I thought everybody really contributed,” he said. “Us playing as a team was really key to us winning.”
The team hosts Metlakatla next, which had beaten the Wolves in both its away games January 25 and 26. The Chiefs are quick to put in shots, Angerman said, and it has a deep roster to draw from. To win, he felt his players would need to stick with their defensive gameplan and try to slow things down.
“We have to do something different obviously, because whatever we did last time didn’t work,” he commented.
The Metlakatla games are set to start on Friday, with junior varsity games beginning at 3 p.m. that day and Saturday. Boys JV starts things off on Friday, followed by the girls JV, boys varsity, and ending with girls varsity. The order changes over the following day.
After Metlakatla Wrangell will head to Haines February 23 and 24, then on March 2 will be hosting Petersburg for the Wolves’ homecoming weekend. Afterward the region’s teams will converge on Ketchikan for Region V, with the top two heading to State in Anchorage.
In the meantime, Angerman said the team has been working through a few auctions and raffles for fundraisers, following its big fundraiser during December’s alumni games. As with other school programs, students on the basketball team have worked on a group community project as well. The boys helped set up Evergreen Elementary School’s book fair last month, and have assisted with the youth basketball league’s games and practices.
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