Crimson Bears crowned Region V champs

The Juneau Empire’s expanded coverage of the Region V tournament is made possible by Sealaska Corp. Thanks to this sponsorship, this article —and all 2023 Region V coverage — is available online without a subscription to the Empire.

If you’re a Crimson Bear — or at least a fan — you’ve got some celebrating to do.

After a second night of playing against Ketchikan High School, Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé boys are now the official Region V 4A Tournament champs as they defeated the Kayhi Kings 70-53.

JDHS coach Robert Casperson said the team is excited for the opportunity to represent Juneau at state and he’s proud of the growth every member of the team has displayed throughout the season.

“We had three guys make the all-conference team, those three guys played huge for us today. Sean Oliver having so many points, OJ (Orion Dybdahl) had a real nice dunk in the first half, the guys were just dialed in,” Casperson said. “Joey Aline did a great job for us in his role and getting double figures, and Alwen (Carrillo) always is special and does a great job with distributing and scoring and taking care of the ball for us. I’m really happy for the guys, Ketchikan is obviously a really tough opponent and I feel like they came out and attacked us right away to have an early lead. It was a close game; they were doing really well and then our guys were just able to find another gear.”

Oliver, a junior, had an especially impressive game with not only leading his team in scoring for a total of 30 points, but six of those were 3-point shots with a fourth-quarter dunk to top it off. Oliver said despite having a bloody finger from the dunk, he feels great about the win, the season and the prospect of going to state.

[See more photos from this game, and the rest of Saturday’s games here]

“That was definitely a long intermission, and I’m definitely tired but feeling great about that win for sure,” Oliver said. “I feel like this was definitely an improvement from last season, we came a long way and won a lot more games in general. We won the games that we needed and counted, just like today. I’m feeling confident going into state, too, we got practically one week left and we’re going to work our a—es off, that’s for sure.”

Dybdahl, a senior, was second in scoring with 12 points, Aline behind him with 11 and Carrillo with 10. For Ketchikan, JJ Parker led the way in scoring with 16 points, and classmate Joeben Lorenzo chipped in 14.

Dybdahl said while he’s happy with the win and still enjoying the moment, he’s already looking forward to what comes next.

“Just looking forward to competing in state and maybe winning,” Dybdahl said. “Yesterday, was kind of a wake-up call, we were kind of riding on our high horse because we had beaten Ketchikan already and they burst our bubble, but we locked in and got the win.”

This year’s ASAA March Madness Alaska State competition for 3A/4A will be March 22-25 in Anchorage at the Alaska Airlines Center.

The Crimson Bears will be the tournament’s No. 8 seed and start with an 11 a.m., Wednesday, March 22, game against top-seeded West Valley High School.

• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.