The Wrangell girls basketball team finished third at the Southeast tournament in Ketchikan on March 5-8.
The top two teams in Southeast (Metlakatla and Haines) received automatic bids to the state tournament in Anchorage this week. Wrangell did not receive an at-large bid, meaning the season ended in defeat to Haines on March 8.
While they may have hoped for more from the Southeast tournament, Wrangell’s performance was not without its highlights.
The Wolves opened tournamentplay with a win against rival Petersburg. After splitting the homecoming series against the Vikings last month, Wrangell bested Petersburg when it mattered most, winning 48-30 on March 5.
As rivalries tend to do, the matchup between Wrangell and Petersburg was back and forth. That is, until it wasn’t. Down 18-19 in the third quarter, Wrangell head coach Christy Good called a timeout. From there on, the team didn’t look back.
Immediately out of the timeout, Hailey Cook drilled a three. From there, the floodgates opened, and Wrangell went on a 15-3 run to stretch the lead to 36-22 by the time the buzzer brought the third quarter to an end.
Wrangell won the matchup 40-30, propelling themselves into a semifinal matchup against Metlakatla and sinking Petersburg into the tournament’s losers’ bracket.
The game against Metlakatla proved much more difficult for Wrangell. Up against the defending state champions, the Wolves were the underdogs from tipoff. Initially, there seemed to be some hope for Wrangell. Metlakatla started the game off with a flurry of turnovers and early foul trouble, not exactly a recipe for success. But Metlakatla found a way through the early adversity, winning 46-23.
Now in the losers’ bracket themselves, Wrangell could not afford to drop another game. Matched up against Craig on March 7, the Wolves faced an uphill battle to secure the coveted second-place finish that would guarantee a spot at the state tournament.
Against Craig, Wrangell certainly showed up, winning comfortably 55-37, much in thanks to Christina Johnson who scored 10 of Wrangell’s first 12 points.
After Craig surprised them earlier in the season with a 60-55 win on Wrangell soil in February, Wrangell turned around and exorcized their Panther demons in the second game of the regular season matchup. Last week’s tournament win against the Panthers not only proved that Wrangell remained the better of the two teams, but that the Wolves were just one win away from securing a spot at the state tournament.
Unfortunately, Haines stood in their way, and the Glacier Bears didn’t back down. Haines won 55-32, knocking Wrangell out of the Southeast tournament and ending the team’s 2024-2025 season.
While Wrangell’s campaign ended on a sour note, Good has maintained all season that this year was about improving team chemistry and building familiarity within her young team. There is not a single senior on this year’s roster, meaning that Good will hopefully return her entire rotation next year.
Even still, Christina Johnson will be the only senior next season, giving Wrangell’s strong sophomore class a two-year window to mount a campaign for the Southeast championship, and maybe, just maybe, a state title too.
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