Only about three hours after the Seward boys were eliminated from the Class 3A state basketball tournament, the Seward girls also dropped out with a 48-32 loss to Houston on Friday at the Sullivan Arena.

“Well somebody’s got to go out,” said Seward coach Mark Clemens. “You know, we did pretty good today, there’s a few things we didn’t fine-tune. We went 1-1 with Houston this season, so we were pretty closely matched.

“We out-rebounded them, but we out-turnovered them, so that wasn’t the best part of it.”

The Seward girls basketball team was dismantled by the Barrow Whalers en route to a 50-30 loss on the first day of the Class 3A state championship Thursday at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

The loss drops the Seahawks into the consolation bracket against Southcentral conference opponent Houston on Friday at 11:30 a.m.

Seward coach Mark Clemens acknowledged that the difference in the game for Seward was the turnovers. The Seahawks committed 25, compared to 18 for Barrow, which translated to 23 points off turnovers.

The Cook Inlet Academy girls basketball team outlasted the Nikolaevsk Warriors in a thrilling triple-overtime game to win the Class 1A state championship 43-39 on Wednesday at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

The strategy that the Eagles used in the second and third overtime periods proved to be the difference, as CIA simply held possession of the ball and nearly ran the clock out before attempting to score.

It doesn’t matter what class, division or conference a basketball team plays in — a state championship berth feels just as great.

The Cook Inlet Academy girls earned a spot in the Class 1A State Championship game by defeating Newhalen 44-27 on Tuesday at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage. For CIA, it is their second consecutive state title game, as they nearly won the 2A girls championship last year.

CIA coach Rustin Hitchcock said although the sting from last year’s game is still felt, this year’s squad is a much different animal.