Unalaska, AK – The Western Alaska 3A conference championship ended this weekend. Barrow and Nome will both be sending both boys' and girls' teams on to state.

On the girls' side, Friday night Bethel and Barrow faced off for the first place slot. It was a very close match, but in the end Barrow won 39 to 35. After the Nome girls beat Dillingham on Saturday morning 46 to 28 they went on to challenge Bethel that evening. Still flying on the morning's high, they beat Bethel 46 to 33 and took the second place title.

For the boys, it was a tough struggle to the top. On Friday evening Barrow and Nome, the top two teams in the state, faced off for the number one slot. Neck and neck the entire game, eventually Nome pushed through to win it 68 to 63.

Saturday afternoon started the quest for second place. The Unalaska Raiders still had a chance for silver, but first they had to beat Bethel. Coach Jim Wilson said the Raiders faced a strong team.

"We had a very hard fought game against Bethel. We started out in pretty good shape and jumped up ten early in the first half. They fought back; they're a very good basketball team. We were able to extend the lead again in the third quarter and get it back up to 8 or 10 points," Wilson said. "But at the end of the day they came out and half court trapped us a little bit and gave us a little bit of pressure and we just had a hard time dealing with that pressure, turned the ball over a little bit, couldn't get defensive stops. It was a hard fought battle between two pretty good basketball teams and unfortunately we weren't able to come out on the top side of things."

The Bethel team played two men on each of Unalaska's guards, throwing them off with the new strategy. The Raiders tried to bounce back.

"They did ok after they settled down, but initially it forced three or four turnovers that were easy transition lay-ups, and we just got beat to some loose balls," he said. "There were tipped passes and balls kind of bouncing around and the Bethel kids just beat us to the balls and converted those into lay ups and just that pressure kind of affected us a little bit."

But in the fourth quarter Bethel scored 27 points a huge number in high school basketball. In the end, they bested the Raiders 57 to 55. It was the end of the Raiders' season.

"I was really proud of the kids. They fought back, they went down, but they fought back. And they just tried as hard as they could and I'm really proud of them. They were certainly disappointed, as was I. We certainly had bigger goals but it wasn't from a lack of effort. They worked as hard as they could, and we had a great season. We won nine out of our last 11 games and they should just be really proud of the work they put in this year," Wilson said.

Six seniors will leave the team this year, but Wilson said some promising players are rising in the ranks.

After Bethel beat Unalaska they continued on to play Barrow for second place. The Whalers beat the Warriors 63 to 50, and Barrow will continue on to state.

The Raiders boys' and girls' teams did win sportsmanship awards.
Check out the girls and boys brackets.