29°

The Southeast Shootout is a four-bracket tournament for middle school and older elementary school basketball players. About 300 athletes are in town for the event.

The Sitka girls A Bracket team beat HoopTime 7/8 24-10 to earn its spot in Saturday's 11:15 a.m. championship game against the winner of today's 3 p.m. losers' bracket game between HoopTime 7/8 and Angoon.

The boys A Bracket won't have a team reach the finals until after today's 1 p.m. winners' bracket final between Red Storm and HoopTime 7th Black.

In the girls A Bracket, the Sitka players said they had several keys for their victory.

"Teamwork," Lisa Fisher-Roy said.

"Our defense was pretty good," Melissa Marvin said.

"We had our speed advantage," Leisha Trani added. "It was also mental, in the head."

Last year, Sitka took second place to Juneau's HoopTime team, in the first year girls had their own bracket in the tournament. Even though most of these Sitka players weren't on that team, they're looking for a better result this time.

"We want to play hard and try to have fun," Amy Stonebreaker said. "We trapped and they didn't know how to deal with it."

"We haven't had many practices," Marvin said. "Last year we took second. This year we want to win."

In the boys B Bracket, HoopTime 6th has dominated its competition. Besides beating Sitka on Thursday, HoopTime 6th beat Hoonah 72-3 and Angoon 55-3 on Wednesday. The HoopTime 6th players said they tried to work on their fundamentals during the games, especially since they suffered a 20-point loss to Angoon's A Bracket team in an exhibition game earlier in the week.

"We ran our offense really well," Cody Grussendorf said. "We made our cuts and got our shots."

"We practice a lot," Dominic Holloway added. "We'd take our time before going for our shots to make sure we do it right. It's going really well."

In the boys A Bracket on Thursday, Red Storm beat Sitka 1 49-23, HoopTime 7th Black beat HoopTime 8th Silver 34-30, HoopTime 8th Blue beat Hoonah 32-22, Native Culture Club beat Sitka 2 40-16 and Native Culture Club beat Angoon 44-35. In late games Thursday, HoopTime 8th Silver beat HoopTime 8th Blue 47-30 and Sitka 1 defeated Native Culture Club 48-33.

Besides the 1 p.m. winners' bracket game between Red Storm and HoopTime 7th Black, today's boys A Bracket losers' bracket games are at noon and 6 p.m., with the winner of the 6 p.m. game advancing to play the winner of the 1 p.m. game in Saturday's 12:30 p.m. championship game.

In the girls A Bracket on Thursday, Sitka beat HoopTime 7/8 24-10 and Angoon beat Hoonah 32-20.

The only girls A Bracket game today is at 3 p.m. between HoopTime 7/8 and Angoon. The winner plays Sitka at 11:15 p.m. Saturday for the title.

In the boys B Bracket on Thursday, HoopTime 6th beat Sitka 43-15, HoopTime 5th beat Hoonah 35-4 and HoopTime 5th beat Angoon 38-8.

The only boys A Bracket game today is at 4 p.m. between Sitka and HoopTime 5th. The winner will play HoopTime 6th in Saturday's 10 a.m. championship game.

In the girls B Bracket on Thursday, HoopTime 6th beat Angoon 35-12, Metlakatla edged Hoonah 22-18, and HoopTime 5th beat HoopTime 5th/6th (but no score was available).

In girls B Bracket action today, Metlakatla plays HoopTime 5th at 2 p.m. with the winner advancing to play Angoon at 5 p.m. The winner of the 5 p.m. game will play HoopTime 6th in the title game at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday.

• Charles Bingham can be reached at charles.bingham@juneauempire.com.