Unalaska, AK – Unalaska's basketball teams kicked off the 2007 season on Friday and Saturday, with the boys playing Sand Point and King Cove at Sand Point and the girls taking on the same teams on the home court. The girls won three of their four games, beating Sand Point 44-28 on Friday and 37-20 on Saturday, and beating King Cove 47-24 on Friday before losing to them 32-31 on Saturday.

Coach Alan Haskins said the girls' team, which has four returning starters from last year, came out swinging.

"They came out hitting on all cylinders," Haskins said. "It's the best I've seen the girls start in a long time."

The boys' varsity team won both of their games, beating Sand Point 66-18 on Friday and King Cove 61-42 on Saturday. The junior varsity team lost their first games as a team, to King Cove 44-27 on Friday and to Sand Point 44-40 on Saturday. But Coach Jim Wilson said it was still a good performance by the young team, which cut the spread to just four points in Saturday's game against the older Sand Point squad.

"Overall those kids improved a lot as the weekend went along," Wilson said. "I thought they played better on Saturday than they did on Friday, and that's what we look for is growth in young players."

Both coaches said they expect tougher competition in two weeks when they face Nome and Kotzebue on the road. Both are 3A teams, like Unalaska and unlike King Cove and Sand Point. Haskins said the Nome team measures up against the Unalaska girls in other ways, too.

"Nome is going to be very tough," he said. "They have some very quick guards, and they're pretty tall. We're pretty tall, too, but our size isn't going to give us any advantage over Nome. But if we play like we did on Friday and continue to improve, I think the girls will do a good job of competing."

Both the boys and the girls will be in Nome on January 23 and 24 and in Kotzebue for the Husky Shootout January 25-27.