Basketball teams on the Kenai Peninsula have begun their seasons and their quest to be the top team in their conference. Nikiski, Skyview, Homer and Seward represent the central Peninsula teams in the Southcentral Conference, and all harbor some level of ambition of making it to the state tournament in March.

The Seward girls squad is the only team that qualified to state last season, having won the SSC championship, but fell out with two losses in the Class 3A state bracket.

The Soldotna girls basketball team walloped the North Pole Patriots 67-27 on Saturday at the Kenai River Challenge at Kenai Central, finishing off an impressive three-day stretch of games in the tournament. The triumph earned the team first-place honors in the tournament.

On Thursday, Soldotna defeated Mt. Edgecumbe 65-28, and dropped Service 70-24 on Friday. They outscored their opponents by a total of 123 points, and an average of 41 points over the three days, and have so far shown very few, if any, weaknesses early in the season.

The Nikiski Bulldogs earned a third-place team finish at the ASAA 1-2-3A State wrestling tournament on Saturday at Nikiski, highlighted by the 195-pound championship match, pitting the Johnson brothers for the crown.

The Kenai Central basketball teams opened the season by getting swept by the East Thunderbirds on Friday night at Kenai.

The Kenai girls were edged 41-36 earlier in the evening in an endowment game, and were followed by a 72-34 loss by the Kardinal boys team. In the boys game, senior forward Wyatt Fitt led the Kards with 17 points, and senior teammate Shane Spalding had 10.