Fairbanks’ Monroe Catholic Rams boys basketball team was already ecstatic to get a 76-55 win over the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Crimson Bears on Friday and became exhilarated to complete the weekend sweep with a 71-55 win Saturday.

“I believe that our guys are working hard.,” JDHS coach Robert Casperson said. “They did play hard. I am totally fine with the effort I saw. There are some things we clearly have to clean up, like execution-wise we gave up some layups that hurt us in the third quarter.”

JDHS junior Brandon Casperson led the Crimson Bears boys with 17 points, and junior Elias Dybdahl led with eight rebounds and three blocks.

“I think we just need to work as a team and not panic in the end game,” Dybdahl said. “And also we can’t get down to the point where we have to foul against a good free-throw shooting team because they just kept making them and there was no coming back at that point. It was pretty physical but we practice by getting the bigs in practice hit by pads, the whole team does too, but it was pretty physical compared to most games.”

Monroe senior Jett McCullough led the Rams with a game-high 21 points.

“The key tonight was just bringing energy,” McCullough said. “We’ve been traveling, we had to play the same day. We got on the plane and our coaches emphasized bringing energy. Other than that it was a team effort. We’re playing hard together. But it was fun…It gives us a great step forward going into regionals because we’ve been playing a little behind, but we found our groove back in these two games.”

McCullough would hit the first basket of the game as he gathered the tipoff from senior center Tucker Williams and drove for a 2-0 lead.

Monroe sophomore Zavier Oleson made it 4-0 before JDHS senior Ben Sikes followed a missed shot to hit inside.

Monroe’s McCullough drove again and Oleson hit past the arc for a Rams’ 9-2 lead.

JDHS senior Ahmir Parker hit from past the side arc to trail 9-5.

Monroe sophomore Adam Geyer gave the Rams an 11-5 lead with four minutes left in the stanza and JDHS senior Pedrin Saceda-Hurt would hit back-to-back baskets to keep pace with Monroe’s Oleson, who hit a free throw and a shot past the arc for a 15-9 Rams lead. Geyer pushed the lead to 18 to 9 and JDHS junior Kurt Kuppert answered with a shot past the arc to trail 18-12.

Monroe would finish the quarter with a drive and pass by junior Armani Smith, who fed junior James Trieglaff for a 20-12 lead. Smith ended the quarter with a blocked shot on a long Crimson Bears’ shot at the buzzer.

JDHS’ Dybdahl would get his own blocked shot in the opening seconds of the second quarter, and gathered the swatted ball and fed Kuppert who hit his second shot past the arc to trail 20-15.

JDHS would hit five shots past the arc in the stanza including from B. Casperson, who closed the score to 20-18 and then gave the Crimson Bears a 21-20 lead.

Monroe took the advantage back as McCullough hit a runner and then back-to-back scores past the arc for a 28-21 lead.

JDHS’ Sikes would battle inside for a score and Saceda-Hurt hit past the arc to trail 28-26.

“Basketball is a really physical sport,” Sikes said. “They are a physical team and we have to respond to that. It was a tough game the whole way through. We can play hard and we need to keep that intensity the whole game. We have moments through the game where we are playing super hard and it seems like we are giving our all, and then we slow down. We just need to keep that energy the whole time.”

JDHS junior Tyler Frisby tied the game at 28-28 on a rebound, but Monroe took it back with a shot past the arc by freshman Harry Roberts for 31-28.

JDHS sophomore Hunter Carte came off the bench to bury a shot past the arc and tie the score at 31-31, but Monroe’s Williams put a score off the backboard for 33-31.

Dybdahl would tie the game for JDHS but McCullough hit his third shot past the arc in the stanza for a 36-33 lead at the half.

“We knew we had to come into this game with some intensity,” Monroe coach Bob Burcell said. “What I wrote on the board was, ‘We beat a proud program on their home floor last night.’ That is a good coach over there and he was going to have them fired up and ready to go and we would have to come with at least as much energy tonight as we did last night. In the end when it came time to execute, we executed. We shot the ball well, shot free throws well. I tell the kids all the time, ‘It is a make-or-miss world. You make your shots things get real simple, you don’t make your shots, well now, things are complicated.’ We have really tried to emphasize pushing the ball, transitioning from defense to offense, I think we did that real well early and when a kid sees the ball going through the net they get confident. We pushed the ball early and at moments we executed. They’re kids, we’re yelling at them from the sidelines, sometimes they are going to do what they want to do.”

Monroe opened the second half with 10-2 run and led 46-35 with four minutes remaining in the stanza and forced a JDHS timeout.

The Crimson Bears came out of the rest period with a Dybdahl score to trail 46-37.

Monroe would get baskets by Smith, Oleson and Williams to lead 52-37 before Casperson hit from distance to trail 52-40 and then on a driving shot to close to 52-42 after three quarters.

Dybdahl cut the lead to eight points with under seven minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, but Williams answered for Monroe for a 54-44 lead.

JDHS would start to put Monroe on the free throw line to try and gain ball possession.

Monroe’s Williams would connect on six free throws in the stanza, Smith four, Geyer and McCullough two apiece and Oleson one.

JDHS’ Dybdahl answered one free throw with a short jumper, Saceda-Hurt with a shot past the arc, Parker a driving shot, Casperson a jumper and then two free throws with 56 seconds left that closed the score to 10 points again, 65-55.

Monroe’s Geyer hit two free throws, Smith had a steal for a score and another steal for a pass to McCullough who was fouled and hit two free throws for the final Rams points and a win for the Fairbanks club 71-55.

“We’re not really good enough to give up multiple possessions in a row that end up in buckets for the other team,” coach Casperson said. “We’ve got to keep things close all the way through. We can’t let teams spurt on us and take a 10-point lead and then think we are going to make that up in five or six possessions. We have got to keep it tight the whole way or try to build the lead and play from in front because we are good enough to do that. Rebounding hurt us, we’re in the right area but we’re not blocking out to create the space like we have at times this year. Monroe is really good at what they do and they’re an athletic team, they’re a strong team so they are going to be tough on the boards. That is even tougher when you just stand next to them and try to turn it into a jumping contest.”

The JDHS comeback was stymied by the Monroe accuracy from the charity stripe.

The Rams hit 15-17 from the line in the fourth quarter and tallied just two field goals.

“We were relying on them to miss some of those free throws in the fourth quarter and they didn’t,” coach Casperson said. “More of our guys got to play more minutes tonight and that is going to help us moving forward.”

Monroe coach Burcell said the two wins are important heading into their region tournament.

“You have to be hungry to get wins,” he said. “We had a good first half of the season and we’ve been beaten up by one particular local opponent (West Valley) and I think we got down on ourselves a little bit. So any win helps get that feel back, get that confidence back, start having fun again. We only have one 4A game left on our schedule, and that is Lathrop and they are a nightmare. They are long, athletic and physical, and then we have a couple dangerous 3A opponents — Valdez twice in Valdez and that is no picnic…And we played Delta earlier and we didn’t stop them, Coach Chad Bunselmeier is there, he’ll have things up and running, he won a state title at Barrow…those are two dangerous 3A teams — good tests for us. If we can manage to get three out of four we should have our confidence and our rhythm going into regionals.

JDHS’ B. Casperson had two steals and three rebounds to go with his 17 points, Saceda-Hurt had 10 points, Dybdahl eight, Kuppert six, Parker five, Sikes four, Carte three and Frisby two.

The Crimson Bears went 2-2 at the charity stripe, the Rams 19-22.

Monroe’s McCullough had four rebounds to go with his 21 points, Williams and Oleson 14 apiece, Geyer nine, Smith eight, Roberts three and Triegalaf two.

The Crimson Bears are 8-15 overall and 1-3 Southeast Conference. The Monroe boys improve to 13-7 overall and remain 3-2 in the 4A Mid Alaska Conference.

Next weekend the Crimson Bears will host the North Pole Patriots for senior night and homecoming activities.

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.