High school basketball teams from Juneau, Skagway and Craig played on Petersburg’s home court at its third annual invitational Jan. 16 through Jan. 18.
Petersburg’s varsity Vikings teams won two out of six games during the tournament. Coaches say the players are focused on building confidence, and they’ve improved in just a few weeks.
The invitational games don’t count towards the team’s regional rank, but boys varsity coach Rick Brock said facing three other basketball teams with different styles helped the team grow.
“That’s what’s great about this tournament is that we got to experience a lot of different situations in the three days,” he said. “Like … fighting from behind and gaining a lead and holding on, being ahead and then holding on to a lead at the end … and then, how do you fight through adversity when you’re down 20 and things aren’t going your way? And how do you still fight the fight?”
The Petersburg Vikings played the Craig Panthers for their third and final game of the weekend, but things didn’t go their way. Petersburg started strong, first beating Juneau-Douglas, then Skagway. But up against Craig, Petersburg lost their early lead and was down double-digits by halftime.
Brock said, once the Craig Panthers took over, the Vikings didn’t gain back their momentum.
“Momentum is a weird thing in sports,” he said. “Once [Craig] started scoring, the basket got really big for them and … we could not stop their scoring.”
Brock said confidence is key — it impacts how well the Vikings compete.
Playing against Juneau-Douglas and Skagway, he said the Vikings “had to have confidence” and won both games. But that factor flipped for the Craig game.
“We lacked believability in ourselves … as they kept gaining confidence, we lost ours” he said.
Petersburg lost to Craig, 70–55.
Brock said it’s important for the team to believe they can compete on the court without hesitating.
“Good basketball, it happens quick. And you don’t have time to doubt or wonder — you have to just react and play. And when you’re not sure of yourself, sometimes you hold back just a little bit,” he said.
The Vikings try to use these experiences to improve.
“They’re great kids, you know. And inside of all of them they have that competitiveness, I think that they just … it takes time to develop that,” Brock said. “As this goes forward, the more and more they get on the court and play and compete, that competitiveness they have inside of them, they’ll let that out — we’ll just play better and better.
Matt Pawuk coaches the Lady Vikings. Although the girls varsity team lost all three of their games, Pawuk said they improved over the weekend — each loss came at a tighter point margin.
“We would have liked to have won all three games. But to see that progress —and especially … against Craig— to see where we’ve come from just a couple weeks ago, was very a positive thing to see,” said Pawuk.
Petersburg’s Lady Vikings played the Lady Panthers from Craig in the final game of the tournament.
The game started slow, with the Lady Vikings down 8–0. But then, Pawuk said, the team “woke up” and scored their first basket of the game.
Despite Craig’s early lead, it was a close competition between the two teams throughout the game. But in the end, Craig won, 39–30.
After a string of defeats, Pawuk said the Lady Vikings have been training for aggression.
“I think sometimes maybe some of the younger kids worry about, you know, having somebody get mad at them for playing too hard or things like that. And I think we’re finally starting to get over some of that — and it shows,” he said. “[We were] able to deal with the physical nature of Craig’s team a lot better this time. So … I think we’re trending in the right direction. We still have a ways to go.”
He said confidence is key, more than strategy, and playing the other teams gave the Lady Vikings first-hand experience with overcoming intimidation.
Pawuk said a psychological reset happened over the weekend after losing the first game to Skagway, 49–20. He described it as a mental adjustment for the team — of knowing they can play better, and then doing it.
“If we’re going to step on the floor, we might as well play,” he said. “And they did.”
The varsity Vikings have two weeks of practice before they travel to Anchorage for the 2A tournament at Lumen Christi on Jan. 30.
JV basketball will take the court next in Petersburg at the JV invitational Jan. 23 through 25.
