Southeast teams put on a strong showing during the opening day of the 2025 ASAA March Madness Alaska 1A/2A State Basketball Championships on Wednesday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center.
In a battle of the finalists from last year’s 1A state title clash the third-seeded Kake Thunderbirds flipped last year’s 39-31 loss and ran past 14th-seeded King Cove T-Jacks 61-41 behind a game-high 22 points and 11 rebounds from Keontay Jackson and a team defense that frustrated the defending champs.
“Our season started the day after the state final last year,” Kake coach Anthony Ross said. “It started as soon as we got back to Kake. Today’s game is going to relieve a lot of nightmares. It’s good. We were a little disappointed in our seeding because of the number of games we played, but then we saw who we played. So that kind of brought the spirit back, the motivation, it really motivated the guys the last few weeks of practice. Honestly, it felt good to get that redemption. It has been a long year.”
Kake’s Rodney Moler hit a shot past the arc to start the game and the Thunderbirds would never trail after.
Kake’s Aiden Clark and Moler continued the scoring binge country wise email marketing list with help from Talen Davis and Zackery Hanson, and the Thunderbirds had a 21-9 lead after eight minutes.
Kake would lead 28-17 at the half as King Cove’s Michael Gould scored eight points, but the Thunderbirds outrebounded the T-Jacks 22-14 in the first half. King Cove had 13 turnovers under Kake’s five steal pressure and the Thunderbirds had an uncharacteristic 10 turnovers in the first half.
The pattern of the game was in full display to start the second
half as Kake had possession first, called a sideline jump player of the game selection stephan-standifer had shot play for Moller who hit nothing but net past the arc and Clark would garnish three rebounds in a row as the Thunderbirds began to own the glass.
“We just try to box out as hard as we can and marketing list grab as many as we can,” Clark said. “This game means a lot. It gives us a lot of energy going forward, especially since they put our undefeated season to a halt last year in the final. We lost our record so now we are trying to start it up again in this state championship. Our defensive intensity was key and then everybody just crashing rebounds and trying to get as many offensive boards as we can.