The Tenino boys basketball team survived an early upset scare, squeaking by King’s Way Christian 48-43 in a 1A District 4 quarterfinal on Wednesday.
The top-seeded Beavers (13-4, 7-1 1A Evergreen) took a four-point lead after one and doubled it before halftime, but they couldn’t pull away in the second half.
The eighth-seeded Knights weren’t going away, but they also couldn’t go on the run they needed to pull off the upset.
Noah Schow, Austin Gonia, and Will Feltus all scored 12 points, while Gonia also grabbed 10 rebounds to finish with a double-double. Jack Burkhardt just missed out on a double-double of his own, hauling in 10 rebounds while scoring nine points and blocking six shots.
The Beavers move on to a winner-to-state semifinal on Friday, when they will host Elma. Just seven days ago, Tenino clinched their first league title in 11 years over the Eagles in a 55-43 victory. The Beavers also took the first meeting between the two teams this season, winning at Elma 55-52 on Jan. 11.
