By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Region V basketball tournament begins Thursday in Juneau. For the senior athletes, it will be the last chance to leave their marks in high school basketball.
For many of the high school seniors this year, basketball has been a lifetime endeavor.
“I think I speak for all of us when I saw we’ve pretty much been playing our entire lives,” Braves’ senior Drew Jackson said in an interview. Jackson is from Kake, and for him the 2020 basketball season has been special in a number of ways.
“My favorite memory from this season... is how I got to watch this team go from just being my teammates at the beginning of the season to how at the end I see everyone of them as a brother.”
At this, Edgecumbe’s three other seniors all voiced agreement.
Jackson said that in last week’s rivalry game between the Braves and the Wolves, his father flew in from his home on Prince of Wales Island.
“Senior night was the first game my dad got to watch,” Jackson said. The Braves scored a handy win, 51-28, in their third rival game of the season.
“Our last game against Sitka is one of the best games we’ve had all season.”
Jackson has yet to decided between the University of Alaska Fairbanks or Fort Lewis College, in Colorado. He added that he’s leaning toward degrees in political science or economics.
He said a boarding school like Edgecumbe has had a positive impact on team dynamics.
“We have lived together for four years now... Whether we like it or not, we’re together. So it helped mold us into a better team.”
Edgecumbe senior Jonathan Constantine came to Sitka all the way from Tok, a small town east of Delta Junction near the Canadian border.
Constantine agreed with Jackson that Edgecumbe’s senior night game against the Sitka Wolves was a season highlight.
“Our last game was really fun. Just all the emotions and how many people came out.”
He added that moving into the Region V tournament, his team is “more focused on our goal.”
Constantine has played on the Braves’ varsity squad for three years, but he said he has played basketball for far longer.
At Edgecumbe, he said, he and his teammates spend lots of time practicing in their free time.
“The gym is always open, we’re always here. It’s just a walk,” Constantine said.
He plans to attend either the University of Alaska Anchorage or Fort Lewis College. He said he’s interested in a bachelors degree in journalism.
All the way from Akiak, just upstream of Bethel on the Kuskokwim River, Corey Jasper said that the Edgecumbe basketball team is like a family to him.
“This is one of the closer teams (I have played on)... We’re all pretty much brothers,” Jasper said.
He added that his team has made large strides over the season.
“We started coming together... We know our roles a lot better than we did at the beginning of the season.”
Like his teammates, Jasper brought up the senior night rivalry game against Sitka High.
“Senior night was the highlight of the year... It’s sad that this is our last year.”
He went on, noting that his team’s 2018 Region V win was another memorable event.
Like his teammates, Jasper also said that attending a boarding school was a positive for the team.
“It helped with the bonding,” he said.
Jasper is interested in earning a nursing degree at UAA. He hoped to return to rural Alaska to work in the healthcare system.
Mt. Edgecumbe’s fourth senior, David Dock, comes from Togiak, a coastal town west of Dillingham.
He said that through the course of the season, his team has come a long way.
“From December until now, we’ve grown a lot better.”
He added that teamwork and cooperation were strengths of the Braves’ basketball squad this year.
“We’ve got a good team,” Dock said.
In addition to basketball, Dock competes in the Native Youth Olympics. His event is the one-foot high kick.
He has yet to decide between UAA and UAF. He’s interested in a degree in criminal justice.
Much like the Braves, Sitka Wolves seniors described their team as a tight knit group.
“It’s all we live and breathe,” Wolves’ senior Mason Eubanks told the Sentinel.
Eubanks also compared last year’s Sitka-Edgecumbe rivalry to the games of 2020.
“We had lost two games during the regular season, just like this year. And then we went into regions and we lost the first game, and then we came back and won two in a row,” he said.
While the 6-foot, 2-inch guard and forward described himself as a passing specialist, Eubanks said that the team as a whole is flexible.
“We just base it off game to game, sometimes we’re hot from 3 sometimes we’re banging inside, sometimes our defense is clicking.”
As a season highlight, Eubanks cited the quadruple overtime match against the Kenai Kardinals. Sitka won a narrow victory in that early-season game.
Eubanks plans to attend Northern Idaho College, where he will work for a degree in physical education, with a minor in coaching.
“We (Eubanks and teammate Gavin Flores) are both in an internship where we go down - I go to Baranof, he goes to Blatchley - and we teach PE there. I’m trying to go to college to be a PE teacher,” Eubanks said.
Moving to the Lower-48, Eubanks thinks that he will miss “the people, the town, the views. I’m a big Sitka boy.”
Sitka senior Gavin Flores has played on the varsity squad for four years, and is excited for the Region V games this week.
“It’s a crazy experience every year... It’s just a rowdy place to be in.”
Flores said he spends much of his time on basketball-related activities.
He believes that the sport “definitely brings friendships closer... Being able to come to practice with friends just makes it more fun.”
Flores described himself as a player who likes to go for shots.
His personal highlights include freshman- and junior-year trips to the State Championship.
Flores also plays center in baseball.
He plans to attend either Lewis and Clark College in Washington or Eastern Washington University to earn a degree in physical education.
Like his teammate Eubanks, Flores said he will miss “the community for sure. Everyone is just bonded together.”
Sitka’s third and final senior is Liam Miller.
He described both passing and rebounds as strengths.
In the early-season quadruple overtime Kenai game, Miller notched a total of 18 rebounds.
“I didn’t even know I had 18 rebounds either, but I had 9 rebounds in the first quarter,” Miller said. “I was just getting rebounds.”
Going into the Region V tournament, Miller described a mixture of emotions.
“Kind of nervous, kind of not nervous,” he said.
Miller runs the 100-yard dash during the track season, too.
He plans to move to Fairbanks and earn a trade degree, possibly in welding.
The 3A Region V Tournament begins Thursday. Sitka and Edgecumbe are the only two 3A schools in Southeast, making for a very simple bracket. The tourney is double elimination, and the winner heads to the state championship in Anchorage, March 26-29.
