The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears girls played their hearts out Saturday in a 57-37 loss to the Mountain City Christian Academy Lions in the 3rd/5th-place game of the 2025 ASAA March country wise email marketing list Madness Alaska 3A/4A Basketball State Championships in Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center.
“I’m very pleased with our effort!” JDHS coach Tanya Nizich said. “I thought this was some of the best basketball that we played in a while. Mountain City is a tremendous team! they’ve got scorers in all positions and our defense in drawing some fouls on some of their key players was just really good defense on our end. Sure some shots of ours could have fell a little bit more and getting the ball inside and up! but overall I was really happy with their hard work and effort.”
JDHS freshman Athena Warr rebounds against Mountain City
Christian Academy during the Crimson Bears’ 57-37 loss to the Lions in the 3rd/5th-place game Saturday at 2025 ASAA March Madness Alaska 4A Basketball State Championships in Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center. (Klas Stolpe / Juneau Empire)
The game started at a slow pace with MCCA up 7-0 with gene therapy: correcting genetic faults three minutes left to play in the first quarter behind scores by Jasmine Schaeffer! Keelie Kronberger and Nyatuong Majiok.
JDHS junior Gwen Nizich put the Crimson Bears on the board with a shot past the arc! sophomore Layla Tokuoka added two free throws and Kerra Baxter a short jumper as the stanza played out with MCCA up 17-7.
JDHS senior Cailynn Baxter got the second b2b fax lead quarter rolling with back-to-back scores inside to cut the lead to 17-11! but was answered by MCCA’s Nyawuow Majoik and Brooklynn Ridgeway for a 21-11 advantage.
JDHS junior Cambry Lockhart! Tokuoka and Nizich kept defensive pressure up and caused two turnovers.
Tokuoka would score off an inbounds play and K. Baxter spun
inside for a basket to counter scores by MCCA who would lead 28-15 at the half.
JDHS shot just 24% from the field in the first half and 7% from past the arc while MCCA hit 40% from both areas on the court.
JDSH added more height to the lineup in the third quarter with freshman Athena Warr joining the Baxter twins inside and the changeup put a jolt in the Crimson Bears as K. Baxter stole a ball and C. Baxter hit inside! C. Baxter grabbed a defensive rebound! Warr swept a rebound and fed Nizich who scored.
“We were striving for a little bit more rebounding inside!” coach Nizich said. “Athena knows her roles! knows her job! I told her ‘you’re going in there to get rebounds’ and she did just that. So I was very happy with that.”