The Palmer Moose swept the first day of action Thursday at the 2019 Northern Lights Conference tournament at Soldotna High School to set up Friday’s semifinal matchups.
The fifth-seeded Palmer girls defeated fourth-seeded Kodiak 67-39 to advance to a semifinal matchup with the top-seeded Soldotna Stars tonight at 7:45 p.m. The winner of that game advances to Saturday’s girls championship final at 6 p.m. and clinches a spot at the Class 4A state tournament. SoHi beat Palmer twice this season with scores of 65-26 and 61-25.
On the boys side, No. 5 Palmer bested No. 4 Kodiak 47-43 to advance to Friday’s semifinals, where the Moose will meet the No. 1 Colony Knights at 2:30 p.m.
The second boys semifinal was already set before the tournament, and features the No. 2 Wasilla Warriors and No. 3 Soldotna Stars tonight at 6 p.m. The two boys semifinal winners will clash for the NLC title Saturday at 4 p.m.
The Palmer girls got scoring from 11 different players, led by Catherine Uschmann’s 16 and Abriana Busbey’s 14. Palmer used a 23-11 spurt in the second quarter to build a 34-23 halftime lead, then won the second half 33-16 to seal the win.
In the boys game, Palmer’s Jacob Titus had the hot hand in the third quarter, scoring 10 of his game-high 16 points for the Moose, but Kodiak still entered the fourth quarter up 34-28.
The Moose rallied to beat the Bears with a 19-9 fourth-quarter effort, getting help from Lavar Marshall. Marshall notched nine points in the quarter to finish with 13 and lead Palmer to the win.
