Skyview boys whip Ninilchik

The Ninilchik High School girls basketball team, trailing by a point with two minutes to play, scored a pair of quick baskets late in the game and held on to beat Skyview 43-41 Friday in a non-region game at Skyview High School.

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The boys matchup wasn't nearly as close as the Panthers streaked to a 32-13 lead at the half and won 72-28.

The Skyview girls matched shots with the Wolverines for much of the game. And with both teams playing tough defense, good shots were hard to come by.

Skyview's Jenny Carpenter hit a tough shot in the lane with two minutes to play to give Skyview a 39-38 edge, but Ninilchik's Kelsey Deiman scored to give the Wolverines their one-point edge back.

Ninilchik's Whitney Leman lands on top of Skyview's Samantha Carlon during a collision Friday.

Photo by M. Scott Moon

Ninilchik pressed on the inbound play, and a steal led to another basket by Deiman to give the Wolverines a 42-39 lead with 1:25 left to play.

"We're not in press shape, and we're nursing some nagging injuries, so we don't have the speed we need and Skyview is a real quick team," Ninilchik coach Dan Leman said of the Wolverines defensive strategy. "We did a little bit of selective pressing. (At the end we pressed) out of desperation, being down with a minute and a half to go. We had to come out and take some chances."

Ninilchik's Whitney Leman hit a free throw with a minute to play to make it 43-39.

Skyview's Amanda Bauer made it a two-point game with her basket, and the Panthers forced a turnover with their press, but Ninilchik's scrappy defense prevented Skyview from getting one more clean look at the basket.

Ninilchik's Kelsey Deiman appears to have her hands full while going after a rebound against Skyview Friday night.

Photo by M. Scott Moon

"It was one of those games that could have gone either way," Skyview's Carpenter said. "We couldn't really get our offense together but we played really hard on defense. We've worked on pressing. We watched some game video, and pressing worked a lot so that's what we were going to try to do."

Skyview's defense did hold Ninilchik's offense in check.

"Skyview's defense was awesome," Leman said. "They took us out of some things we like to do. ... We had some girls you don't usually hear about pick it up for us."

One of those players was Deiman, who finished with 12 points for the Wolverines. Molly Bosick netted 10 points for Ninilchik.

Bauer led the Panthers with 13 points while Carpenter finished with eight.

The Skyview boys were able to feed Josh Rowell in the lane early and often while the Ninilchik boys struggled from the floor in the early going in the non-region game.

Rowell finished with 25 points -- 22 of them in the first half.

Nolan Rose scored 14, including four 3-pointers that set a Panther season record for treys in a season with 41, and Adam Kosydar scored 11 points in fourth-quarter for Skyview in mop-up duty.

Buck Kvasnikoff and Josh Smith each scored six points for the Wolverines.

"Ninilchik had a tough shooting night. I've seen them play some this season, and they shoot the ball better than that," Skyview boys coach Dave Blossom said. "Once we got steamrolling, everybody contributed."

The Skyview boys improve to 8-12 overall while the Skyview girls fall to 7-13 overall. The Panthers will finish up their regular-season Region III/4A play next weekend with games at home against Homer Friday and at Soldotna Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Ninilchik boys will jump back into action Tuesday when they host Nikolaevsk. Both the Wolverines boys and girls host Nenana Thursday.

WOLVERINES GIRLS 43, PANTHERS 41

Ninilchik 10 11 10 12 -- 43

Skyview 11 10 10 10 -- 41

NINILCHIK (43) -- Hanson 2 0-0 5, W. Leman 1 3-8 5, Russo 3 0-0 6, Matson 0 0-0 0, Moerlein 1 0-1 2, Bosick 2 6-12 10, B. Leman 1 0-0 3, Deiman 5 1-3 12. Totals -- 15 10-24 43.

SKYVIEW (41) -- Verba 0 0-0 0, Truesdell 0 0-0 0, Colvin 3 0-0 6, Carlon 1 0-0 2, K. Kier 1 2-2 4, Beever 1 0-0 2, Bauer 5 3-3 13, Carpenter 4 0-1 8, C. Kier 1 2-3 4, Gephardt 1 0-0 2, Fay 0 0-0 0. Totals -- 17 7-9 41.

3-point goals -- Ninilchik 3 (Hanson, B. Leman, Deiman). Total fouls -- Ninilchik 10, Skyview 20. Fouled out -- Carlon.

PANTHERS BOYS 72, WOLVERINES 28

Ninilchik 6 7 6 9 -- 28

Skyview 13 19 23 17 -- 72

NINILCHIK (28) -- Russo 0 0-0 0, Schollenberg 0 0-0 0, Miller 1 3-4 5, Smith 2 2-4 6, Stradford 0 0-0 0, Boyle 1 0-2 2, Bock 1 0-0 2, Matson 1 1-2 3, Rohr 0 0-0 0, Poindexter 0 0-0 0, Hostetter 2 0-0 4, Kvasnikoff 2 1-7 6. Totals -- 10 7-19 28.

SKYVIEW (72) -- McGarry 3 0-0 6, Travers 0 0-2 0, Mallett 1 0-0 2, Rose 5 0-0 14, Lewis 3 0-0 6, Norman 2 0-0 4, Shadura 0 0-1 0, Kosydar 5 1-1 11, Cooper 2 0-0 4, Rowell 12 1-5 25. Totals -- 33 2-9 72.

3-point goals -- Ninilchik 1 (Kvasnikoff), Skyview 4 (Rose 4). Total fouls -- Ninilchik 14, Skyview 16. Technical fouls -- Travers, Kvasnikoff. Fouled out -- none.