Before the high school boys basketball season started, head coach Cody Angerman said his goal was to win state. But he also said, “If we’re the best team possible by the time March comes around, that’s the best I can ask for.”
After a tight second place Southeast finish to defending champions Metlakatla, the boys team is very much still in the running to achieve both those goals. The boys took home the silver medal after winning two of their three games March 5-8 at the Southeast tournament in Ketchikan.
The Wolves got out to an impressive start. Matched up against a Haines team Wrangell has defeated all season long, the Wolves once again showed who the better team was. Wrangell won 49-31 on March 5.
The Wolves headed into halftime up 22-14, but when the second half started Angerman’s team kicked it into sixth gear with a high-flying 16-2 run. The Wolves efficiency beyond the arc buoyed an otherwise relatively quiet offensive showing. Keaton Gadd led the way in scoring with 16 points and three three-pointers. Lucas Schneider, Kyan Stead and Aayden Gillen added a pair of threes apiece.
“I think we kind of had to shake out some of the nerves,” Angerman told the Ketchikan Daily News after the game, “but then we got on a little bit of a run, had a couple of steals and some layups, and I think that sort of got us into a rhythm a little better offensively.”
Next up: Metlakatla in the Southeast championship game. This was the fifth time the teams faced off this year. In the previous four times, Metlakatla left the gym victorious. They beat Wrangell 49-26 and 53-50 in December before completing the sweep in January, this time 55-41 and 54-37.
But the matchup on March 7 started out a little different: Wrangell started hot, really hot. The Wolves took an early 18-8 lead after a slew of forced turnovers and successfully executed fast breaks.
“They sure came out and punched us in the mouth,” Brody Booth, a Metlakatla senior, said.
But Metlakatla, a perennial stalwart in Southeast basketball, responded well. After an early timeout and an ensuring run of scoring, Metlakatla crunched the Wrangell lead to just two points when the two teams headed down the tunnel for halftime.
While Metlakatla’s ferocious 12-4 run coming out of halftime squashed the momentum Wrangell built in the game’s opening quarter, Daniel Harrison did his best to keep the Wolves howling in the second half. The senior scored 15 points in just the game’s two final quarters. However, an 18-point fourth quarter from Metlakatla was enough to decide the championship. Metlakatla won 57-46.
But Wrangell’s state hopes weren’t dashed just yet. The top two teams qualify for the state championship. With Metlakatla taking the guaranteed spot, the final spot was down to two teams: Wrangell and Petersburg.
Just as they did on homecoming weekend, the Wolves once again triumphed over the Vikings. On March 8, Wrangell won 48-35 against their rivals to secure a spot in the state tournament in Anchorage from March 13-15.
Wrangell heads into the state tournament as the No. 5 seed and they will face off against No. 4 seed Seward on Wednesday in the tournament’s first round. Meanwhile Metlakatla is on the other side of the bracket. Meaning the two teams will likely avoid each other unless they meet in the championship game.
It’s safe to say that Metlakatla head coach TJ Scott is happy about this.
“Wrangell has a very good basketball team,” Scott said. “They are going to cause some problems for people if they make it to state. I hope we don’t run into them there.”
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