Klukwan too much for Sitka in Gold Medal masters championship
- Klas Stolpe
- 56 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Klukwan masters put five Hall of Fame members on the court during win
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
Klukwan had too many Hall of Fame shooters on their roster for opponents to handle as they ended their Gold Medal masters run with a 74-52 win over defending champion Sitka during Saturday’s final day of the 77th annual Juneau Lions Club Gold Medal Basketball Tournament.
“We have just been playing together for so many years,” Haines’ Michael Ganey said. “We kind of know what each other’s strengths and weaknesses are and we kind of play to that. We have a good idea of where we are going to be on the floor.”
Ganey is one of the Klukwan and Haines players over the years who have not yet been put into the Hall of Fame, despite being one of the tournament’s most influential and inspirational. But he attributes that to who he plays with.
“With these guys I know I can just turn and run and they will get the ball to me,” he said. “This win was good. They were missing a couple of guys that they had last year and we had a pretty good squad that played well this year, putting up a lot of points. I anticipate Sitka being back next year.”
In the first 10 minutes of action, Klukwan’s Andrew Friske (2023 Gold Medal Hall of Fame) hit two shots past the arc and scored eight points, Ganey had fours steals and eight points, Jason Shull (2018 GMHOF) had two steals and a shot past the arc and another closer in and Jordan Baumgartner hit a lay-in as they totaled 23 points.
Sitka’s Jeremy Plank and Jimmie Jensen battled inside to total their 10 points with Plank adding one shot past the arc.
Newly minted Hall of Famer David Buss, who was awarded that honor Friday night, hit two shots past the arc in the second quarter, and Jesse McGraw (2023 GMHOF) and Stewart DeWitt (2017 GMHOF) were involved in numerous defensive plays through the first half. Friske hit two shots past the arc in the second quarter, DeWitt one and Shull one to add to Buss’ total, while Jordan Baumhartner and Ganey hit on the run as Klukwan led 45-28 at the half and would never be challenged the remainder of the game.
“It is pretty humbling,” Buss said of his honor. “It is pretty nice. I never really thought about it happening. I was fresh out of college and moved back to town and got picked up on the Haines teams. I really didn’t know a lot about Gold Medal at the time. I felt like a young guy. But I have been hanging around with these guys for 20-plus years so now I am the old guy and it is a lot of fun.”
Sitka had a strong second quarter behind seven points from Jimmie Jensen, four from Cliff Ritcher, a shot from the arc by Plank and one shot closer in from Efren Arce and Justin Bagley.
Haines outscored Sitka 17-9 in the third quarter to lead 62-37 with a final 10 minutes to play.
With 8:13 left in the final stanza, Friske had an idea.
“All five of us are in the Hall of Fame, Dave just got inducted this year,” Friske said. “So I asked the coach if we could go out there for a few minutes and play together like we have been since we were 17 years old. So we went out there for a few minutes and reminisced from 30 years ago…We never thought about getting injured back then and we never thought about getting old. And now I look back at it and I wish I would have taken more advantage of being 17. Looking back, it is a testament to staying healthy and having good teammates to push you along the way. Gold Medal is such a great thing, not just for us as teammates but for families getting together, staying healthy and living the best life we can.”
Uniform numbers 12 (Shull), 22 (Buss), 33 (McGraw), 40 (DeWitt) and 44 (Friske) all took to the floor, and fans took notice of five active Hall of Famers together on the court.
McGraw said he thought about their first times together as youths when they took to the court on Saturday.
“Yeah, I did,” he said. “Dave was a little out of our class but has been playing with us ever since we were in our early 20s. It was pretty special. It is just a lot of years of playing together that makes Klukwan gel and we want to win as a team. That is the most important part, sticking together through multiple tournaments each year.”
“Oh, it was fun,” DeWitt said. “Almost 30 years ago we played our first tournament together. Me, Jesse, Dave, Jason and Andrew. Everybody is kind of getting old and injured, it took a while to get everybody back to be able to be available for a year. The championships are all cool but it is just fun to be able to play with your buddies you played 30 years ago with. Same kind of experience. The intensity is definitely not there like it was 30 years ago but it is still fun... When everything is working right it is working right, and then when it is not working right it looks real bad. But when it is working right it looks pretty good still.”
“When you boil it right down, it is basically just love,” Haines’ Jason Shull said. “It is all love. To get to do this at our age and to have done it for so long. I am just super grateful every single time I get to do it…I have VHS video tapes of us around third grade, we’re children, small children, so it is pretty awesome. Everybody’s families get spread out sometimes but when we travel everybody tries to make it a point to reconnect any time we can and that is the great thing about Gold Medal anyway. That reconnecting with the Southeast community, that family...Gold Medal is fun. Let the chips fall where they may. We all take our turns winning so it is just great to be here and be a part of it.”
In 2017, Friske, Ganey, McGraw, Shull and DeWitt were key players in Klukwan’s C bracket triple overtime win against Juneau’s James Gang, winning 107-97. It was the middle championship of their three in a row from 2016-18.
“It was exhausting,” DeWitt said. “We just wanted someone to make a basket and end it. It went on forever.”
Shull had coached the women’s team to a championship earlier that day and remembered, “Oh, man. I thought the girls’ win would be the highlight. That night we were hugged by elders and young kids and really, it felt like they held us up.”
Friske was MVP of that game and remembered, “I think in all our years that was one where we started to get on each other’s nerves a bit in the huddles. But we stayed on the floor from regulation through three overtimes and I couldn’t tell you what happened.”
Ganey and McGraw were involved in one of that game’s major plays in the third overtime. McGraw hit a free throw, then missed the second and Ganey grabbed the rebound and found McGraw at the three-point line and he buried the shot, the first time any team had led by two possessions.
“It was memorable,” Ganey said. “I remember just being completely exhausted and just playing through it. But that was a lot of fun. That built a lot of this team. It showed our grit.”
That grit came to fruition Saturday as the team was rewarded with their community’s ninth title (4 masters, 3 C, 2 A). Some of these players have been involved with Haines’ 17 titles (9 B, 6 A, 2 women’s).
The 2026 Masters Bracket All-Tournament Team were Jeremy Plank (Sitka), Stuart Dewitt (Klukwan), Arthur Campbell (Hoonah), Michael Ganey (Klukwan) and Efran Arce (Sitka). The Most Valuable Player was earned by Andrew Friske (Klukwan).
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@gmail.com.
Masters Championship - Klukwan 74 (3-0), Sitka 52 (2-2)
Klukwan 23 22 17 12 — 74
Sitka 10 18 9 15 — 52
Klukwan — Andrew Friske 25, Michael Ganey 12, Jordan Baumgartner 8, Jason Shull 8, Dave Buss 8, Stuart DeWitt 7, Jesse McGraw 3, Jeffrey Klanott 3. 15 2PT / 14 3PT / 2-3 FT / 6 fouls - Ganey 2, DeWitt 2.
Sitka — Derek James 14, Jimmie Jensen 10, Jeremy Plank 10, Efren Arce 5, Cliff Ritcher 4, Thomas Anderson 4, Steve Edenshaw 3, Justin Bagley 2. 17 2PT / 4 3PT / 6-7 FT / 3 fouls - Arce 1, Anderson 1, David Johnson 1.
