The Juneau Empire’s expanded coverage of the Juneau Lions Club 74th Gold Medal Basketball Tournament is made possible by Sealaska Corp. Thanks to this sponsorship, this article —and all of this year’s Gold Medal coverage — is available online without a subscription to the Empire.

Klukwan and Hoonah took to the court for the Masters Bracket to see who would play in Saturday’s championship game for the 2023 Gold Medal Basketball Tournament at ​​Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé.

This game was close with both teams taking the lead at times and even Klukwan jumping ahead slightly at the end of the third quarter, but by the final seconds of the fourth, Hoonah managed to pull off the win with a 60-55 final score.

Hoonah coach Greg Garcia said that while the team was excited to know they were going into the championship game, it’s not a position this Hoonah team hasn’t been in before as they’re an “experienced bunch.”

“We played a good quality team tonight, and the guys should be proud of themselves,” Garcia said. “We knew it was going to be a long week, we had a strategy to come in here and rest our legs to have a good rotation to get everybody in. That’s pretty much what the Hoonah fans saw tonight and the Klukwan squad saw a great game. There were actually two winners to walk off this floor tonight.”

Albert Hinchman led in scoring for Hoonah with 20 points. Klukwan’s Jason Shull led all scorers with 25 points.

Hoonah now advances to Saturday’s championship game at 4 p.m. against Juneau.

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