The Cook Inlet Academy boys basketball team lost 64-52 to Minto on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Class 1A state basketball tournament at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage.
The No. 5-seeded Lakers advance to the semifinals on Friday at 6:15 p.m. against top-seeded Kake.
CIA, the No. 4 seed, now must win twice to take fourth place. The Eagles (23-4) face No. 9 Shaktoolik at 8 a.m. Friday for a spot in the fourth-sixth place game.
Minto led 18-14 after the first quarter and 32-29 at halftime, but CIA was able to go up by six points in the third quarter.
But the Eagles’ shots stopped falling at that point, with the Lakers leading 43-42 after three quarters, then winning the last eight minutes 21-10.
“It just came down to shooting percentage,” CIA head coach Ben McGarry said. “In the second half, we were 8 for 27. And it’s tough to win a basketball game when you shoot 29%.
“I was telling my fellow coaches, you’ve either got to play incredible defense, or you’ve got to shoot well, or you have to have to close calls go your way. In the last 10 minutes of the game, we were 0 for 3.”
McGarry said the Eagles worked the ball for good shots.
“We just missed some close ones that we usually make,” he said. “I couldn’t tell you exactly why they didn’t go in.
“They rimmed out and they were the right shots at the right time.”
For the game, CIA was 13 of 33 on 2-pointers and 7 of 16 on 3-pointers. Minto was 26 of 47 and 1 of 8.
The Lakers also won the rebound battle 29-19 and the turnover battle 12-6.
Ian McGarry had 21 points on 8 of 17 shooting, while Alek McGarry had 13 points on 5 of 17 shooting.
Lucas Oyoumick had 9 big points for the Eagles, nailing all three of his 3-point attempts. It was two straight 3-pointers by Oyoumick that gave the Eagles the six-point advantage in the third quarter.
Coach McGarry said the Eagles had several chances to stretch that lead, but didn’t capitalize.
“We could have pushed that lead to eight or 10 and held the ball a little bit,” McGarry said.
Owen Braband had 7 for the Eagles, while Jeremiah Dillingham had 2. Coach McGarry said Dillingham continues to impact the game in a big way on defense. Brandt Rollman had 8 rebounds.
For Minto, Marsten Capelle had 17, Andrew David had 16, Jeffery Frank had 12, Asher Titus had 10, Justin Charlie had 5, and Jonathan David and Warren Charlie had 2 apiece.
Coach McGarry said Minto is a good team, and he’d like to see more quality 1A opponents like that during the season. He said the two tried to schedule a game this season, but it didn’t work out.
“We were both looking forward to this game,” McGarry said. “We knew, eventually, we’d play at state.”
The coach said Shaktoolik plays a similar style to Minto.
“So we’ll definitely have our hands full,” McGarry said.
