Southeast teams put on a strong showing during the opening day of the 2025 ASAA March Madness Alaska 1A/2A State Basketball Championships on Wednesday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center.
In a battle of the finalists from last year’s 1A state title clash the third-seeded Kake Thunderbirds flipped last year’s 39-31 loss and ran past 14th-seeded King Cove T-Jacks 61-41 behind a game-high 22 points and 11 rebounds from Keontay Jackson and a team defense that frustrated the defending champs.
“Our season started the day after the state final last year,” Kake coach Anthony Ross said. “It started as soon as we got back to Kake. Today’s game is going to relieve a lot of nightmares. It’s good. We were a little disappointed in our seeding because of the number of games we played, but then we saw who we played. So that kind of brought the spirit back, the motivation, it really motivated the guys the last few weeks of practice. Honestly, it felt good to get that redemption. It has been a long year.”
Kake’s Rodney Moler hit a shot past the arc to start the game country wise email marketing list and the Thunderbirds would never trail after.
Kake’s Aiden Clark and Moler continued the scoring binge with help from Talen Davis and Zackery Hanson, and the Thunderbirds had a 21-9 lead after eight minutes.
Kake would lead 28-17 at the half as King Cove’s Michael Gould scored eight points, but the Thunderbirds outrebounded the T-Jacks 22-14 in the first half. King Cove had 13 turnovers under Kake’s five steal pressure and the Thunderbirds had an uncharacteristic 10 turnovers in the first half.
The pattern of the game was in full display to start the second half as Kake had possession first, called a sideline jump shot play for Moller who hit nothing but net past the arc and Clark would garnish three rebounds in a row as the Thunderbirds began to own the glass.
“We just try to box out as hard as we can and grab as many as we can,” Clark said. “This game means a lot. It gives us a lot of energy going forward, especially since they put our undefeated season to a halt last year in the final. We lost our record so now we are trying to start it up again in this state championship. Our defensive intensity was key and then jdhs girls fall to mountain city everybody just crashing rebounds and trying to get as many offensive boards as we can.
Clark would grab and offensive rebound and score, the Kake press would allow Xzavier Munoz-Torres to lay in a score, Jackson and Clarke found rebound scores and the run continued into a 45-28 lead after three quarters.
King Cove’s Brennen Larsen, M. Gould and Seyler Gould pulled
the T-Jacks to 47-34 with 5:20 remaining but Moler, Jackson and T. Davis pushed the Thunderbirds into a closing run for the 61-41 final.
During the runs the bench would provide just marketing list as much power as the starting five and were encouraged by their upperclassmen throughout.
“That is just a testament to our leadership,” coach Ross said. “Our main thing is win. Stats don’t really matter, the only thing that matters to the guys is that win-loss column. The guys buy into that, we bought into that as a team and as long as we win that is the only thing that matters.”