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Barrow girls win Grace Christian Classic

January 13th 1:40 am | Van Williams Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

The top-ranked Barrow girls basketball team ran its winning streak to seven games after sweeping through the Grace Christian Classic in Anchorage over the weekend.

Led by tournament MVP Lynette Hepa, the Lady Whalers beat Houston, Kotzebue and host Grace on consecutive days to earn their second straight tournament title.

But while Barrow's 22-point average margin of victory looked impressive on paper, coach Jordyn Danner saw chinks in the armor.

"Throughout the tournament we turned the ball over way too much and gave up too many second and third attempts for teams to score," said the second-year coach, who has won 33 of her first 34 games as bench boss.

"Those are definitely two areas that we need to improve on to be great competitors."

The game everybody talked about was Barrow's 63-59 OT win over Kotzebue.

Hepa pumped in 25 points - none more vital than the two she scored right at the end of regulation to beat the buzzer.

Or did she?

The shot looked late to the naked eye and video replays confirmed that.

Even Danner thought it was late, but she wasn't complaining.

"From where I was standing it looked like she didn't get the shot off in time, but the official under the basket called it good," she said.

Regardless the Whalers are good, and a little lucky, too.

In overtime, Hepa scored three field goals, Trina Brower scored one and Jalene Kanayurak and Dana Chrestman each sank 3-pointers to help Barrow outscore Kotzebue 14-10.

"It was such an intense game all the way down to the wire to Lynette making a questionable last-second buzzer beater and taking the game into overtime," Danner said. "Coach Stoops coached an amazing game. Looking back at the tapes he was so calm, cool and collected. You could tell by the way Kotzebue executed their game plan that they'd been working hard in the gym."

Besides Hepa, Barrow's top scorers were Chrestman [13], Kanayurak [10] and Angela Miguel [8].

Hepa made the all-tournament team and won the tournament's post-player competition. Chrestman won the tournament's free-throw contest, making 14 of 20 shots.

In other games, Barrow beat Houston 59-26 on the first day behind Hepa's 21 points. Hilary Lowery added 18 points and Miguel chipped in 8.

On the final day, Barrow defeated Grace Christian 55-29 with Hepa scoring 22, Chrestman 10 and Lowery 9.

The Lady Whalers are now 7-1 on the season.

They will get a major test with 4A power Wasilla coming to town next led by championship coach Jeannie Hebert-Truax.

"We can't afford to turn the ball over as much as we did this past weekend and we definitely need to follow through when it comes to fundamentals like boxing out and securing the basketball and playing with confidence," Danner said.

 

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