MONTESANO — White Pass’ magic may have run out against Adna, but it was present here Tuesday night.
It took until the 7-minute mark of the fourth quarter for the Panther attack to show up, as sophomore Coy Hanger — who averaged just over a free throw’s worth of scoring per game in the regular season — single-handedly brought the defecit from 19 to 8 points with three straight 3-pointers and a pair of free throws.
“We were gettin’ pretty nervous,” Pirate guard Coulsen Kohler said. “He was heatin’ up.”
“We’re looking at a 20-point lead and all of the sudden this kid becomes unconscious,” Adna coach Casey Dotson said.
The Panthers, however, would only bring the defecit down an additional point, with 3:34 remaining, before their offense went stagnant in a 53-44 District IV 2B Boys Basketball Tournament elimination game loss.
“We were just panicking after that,” Hanger said. “I feel bad for the seniors, but we really had fun winning some games at districts.”
Hanger finished with 18, and only got one more look at a three-point bucket, as Adna glued Kohler to the guard.
“I just had to deny him and not let him touch the ball,” said Kohler, who shared the team-lead for points with Kyle Grosshans at 14.
“It just took an extra effort on defense and not allowing them easy shots to put them away,” Grosshans said.
The Pirates caught fire in the third quarter, hitting 8 of 10 from the field for 21 points en route to pushing their lead to a comfortable 18 points, before scoring just 3 points in the first 5 minutes of the final frame.
“We played really well for 24 minutes,” Dotson said. “The goal was to pressure (White Pass’) guards and get them out of their comfort zone.
“We made (Kyle) Kelly work,” Dotson added, “and a lot of that was the defense of Bubba Lara.”
Lara finished the game with four steals. Kohler also had three steals and six rebounds, and Nate Trotter had four blocked shots to go along with 9 points.
Adna now plays Pe Ell Thursday in a loser-out game in Chehalis, starting at 6:30 p.m. The Pirates won both of the teams’ regular-season matchups.
