Down by 11 points at the start of the fourth quarter, the Klawock Chieftains fought their way back into the Region V championship game on Friday. The Chieftains reeled off a 10-1 run that pulled them to within 41-39 with less than a minute left in regulation.
That’s as close to the state tournament they could get.
The Panthers buried five free throws in the final 41 seconds, including shots from Kaleb Cochran and Camden Lawson with less than 10 seconds left, that handed Skagway a thrilling 46-43 come-from-behind victory in front of a large crowd in the Mt. Edgcumbe High School gym.
With the win, Skagway capped a 3-0 run at the Southeast Conference tournament and, more importantly, earned its second straight trip to the Class 1A state basketball tournament.
After Connor Bagby had capped the Chieftains’ late surge with a three-point shot from the left side to cut Klawock’s deficit to two, at 41-39, the Panthers used their stall game – and the free throw line to perfection when the Chieftains were forced to foul.
Following Bagby’s three-point bomb, Royce Borst and the SHS offense ran almost 2 minutes off the clock. When Lawson went to the free throw line for two shots, the Panthers needed to kill just 41 seconds.
Lawson buried the back end of his two-shot opportunity, building the Panthers’ lead to 42-39.
After Klawock’s Raymond Fairbanks had pushed back an offensive rebound to cut the Panthers’ lead to 42-41, Borst put the Chieftains on the brink. A senior, he knocked down two chances from the charity stripe and upped Skagway’s lead to 44-41 with 30 seconds remaining.
Cochran and Lawson added free throws in the closing seconds to seal the victory.
Klawock, which had won the conference title three straight years from 2022-2024, held the upper hand in the first eight minutes of play. The Chieftains used a 10-4 run over the final 5 minutes of the first quarter to grab an 18-12 lead.
Borst led the Panthers offense in the first quarter by tossing in six points. Ryder Calver and Lawson added shots.
Skagway got its offense into gear in the second. The Panthers, sparked by a three-point shot by Logan Rupprecht with 1:20 left in the half, outscored Klawock by an 11-7 clip and pulled to within 25-23 in the closing seconds.
Borst, who scored 14 of his team-high 16 points in the first half, drew a foul with 2.3 seconds left in the half and went to the free throw line for a pair of shots. He sank both attempts and knotted the game at 25-25 at the half.
Borst finished the contest with a double-double. In addition to his 16 points, he also grabbed 17 rebounds.
Cochran provided the spark the Panthers’ needed in the third. After Klawock and eked out a 28-27 lead in the first 1:52 of the second half, Cochran drained a three-pointer from the right side to give SHS the lead, at 30-28.
Lawson made sure the Chieftains never saw the lead again. He reeled off nine points in the final 4:38 of the half and carried Skagway to a shocking 39-30 lead at the start of the fourth.
Lawson closed out the game with 14.
Malcolm Lawson pushed home a shot from the low post just seconds into the final frame and pushed Skagway’s lead to 11, at 41-30.
Skagway rolled into the championship game fresh off an easy win over Angoon in the tournament semifinals. They garnered double-digit efforts from Malcolm Lawson, Borst and Luca Tronrud en route to a 79-30 win.
The Panthers took all of the mystery out of the game quickly. They outscored Angoon by a 23-4 clip in the first quarter and never looked back.
Lawson led all SHS scorers in the rout with 18 points. Borst added 16 while Tronrud chipped in 15.
The Panthers, who came into the tournament as the No. 2 seed, kicked off the weekend’s action with a 68-24 rout of Gustavus on Wednesday.
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