Wahkiakum’s intensity lasted all four quarters. Napavine’s outside shooting touch, however, did not.
The Mules knocked off defending District IV 2B Girls Basketball Tournament champion Napavine, 47-40, Wednesday night in a district semifinal in Chehalis, sending the Tigers into a loser-out, winner-to-state contest with Mossyrock tonight.
Napavine led by a pair after three quarters, but went dry for the first four and a half minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Mules, meanwhile, got 17 points from Jordan Wirkkala on 7 of 9 shooting from the floor in both teams’ first game since Thursday.
“We came out how we practiced, unfortunately,” Napavine coach Shane Schutz said. “Hopefully, there’s a lesson to be learned.”
Amy Goettelman scored 10 of her team-high 15 points in the first half to help the Tigers to a 22-20 lead at the intermission. The Mules, though, held Napavine to just an Ali Brossard putback and a 3 from Goettelman in the final frame, while scoring 14 points an opening the quarter on a 9-0 run.
“It came down to the fourth quarter,” Schutz said. “They outplayed us.”
The Tigers shot 7 of 30 from behind the 3-point line, but knocked down just one triple in the fourth quarter.
“We tried to attack (the hoop), but they were doing a good job on help defense,” Schutz added. “They were hungry. They did what the needed to do.”
Brossard pulled down 13 rebounds and scored 7 points, while Halie Boyce added 13 for Wahkiakum. The Mules will take on Northwest Christian (Lacey) — 39-28 winners over Toutle Lake Wednesday night — on Saturday for the District IV title.
The Tigers (18-4) and Mossyrock meet up in Rochester tonight in a loser-out, winner-to-state contest at 8 p.m. Napavine won both of the teams’ regular-season matches.
“I know we’re tough,” Schutz said. “I think we’ll come out fine tomorrow.”
Notes: In other 2B girls action, Raymond beat Naselle 59-46 to the other loser-out game. The winner of tonight’s Raymond-Toutle Lake game will play the Mossyrock-Napavine winner for third place on Saturday. Both the third- and fourth-place teams advance to state.
