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.
A Tuesday afternoon game between Angoon and Yakutat in the W Bracket got the third day of this year’s Gold Medal Basketball Tournament started.
The score remained close for much of the first half, however, in the second half Yakutat gradually pulled ahead for a 54-47 finish.
Rose Fraker of Yakutat said the main key for her team is maintaining focus this far into the tournament and trusting each other.
“It was also a matter of being patient,” Fraker said. “We had six players today, our seventh didn’t show up, so it was more or less a matter of keeping our composure and making smart plays and trusting each other. If we put a shot up, we’re trusting each other to shoot the ball; the biggest part of our game is that we trust each other enough that we’re fine with each of us taking the shot, that’s about it, just trust.”
Fraker led Yakutat in scoring with 18 points and Trinity Jackson had 11. For Angoon, Ladonna Byers had 11 points and Frances Dowd had 9 points.
Yakutat now will go one to either play against Prince of Wales or Sitka at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. Angoon will play Hoonah at 9 p.m. on Wednesday .
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
