Opening day of 76th Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal Basketball Tournament sets the bar high

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There is always a little salt thrown into the basketball stew at Gold Medal and a few teams are feeling the sting after the first day of action in the 76th Annual version this year.

Defending C Bracket champion Hoonah found itself three jumpers shy of a win over Hydaburg and now every game will be do-or-die for them. Hydaburg, meanwhile, gets to jump on the court again Monday at noon against Klukwan, a team that was given a first-round bye.

The rematch of last year’s C Bracket championship game was a back-and-forth fight that was tied 59-59 with 7:55 left in the fourth quarter. But Hydaburg went on a nine-point run during the next three country wise email marketing list minutes and held off comeback attempts by Hoonah to prevail 74-66 in the teams’ opener.

“We just picked up our defense and tried to make it a little more tight, and tried to pressure their ballhandlers,” said Hydaburg’s Devin Edenshaw, who’s been playing in Gold Medal tournaments since 2001.

While a majority of the Hydaburg team have played together in some form, only three members from last year’s C squad are on this year’s roster, Edenshaw said. But he said he feels confident the team has the ability to avenge last year’s 75-64 title game loss.

“We lost to them last year, so this was a game we were looking forward to,” he said. “We’re coming into the tournament knowing we’re one of the better teams, and you just have to put the effort down and we’re going to be there.”