TOLEDO — The Central 2B League, to borrow a common refrain, can be a bit of a meat-grinder. And snow and ice only exacerbated the effect Saturday, with both Adna and Toledo capping stretches of three games in three days with a crucial mid-table matchup in Cheese Town.
But the Pirates had begun their run with blowouts over Onalaska and Winlock, while Toledo was coming off two straight overtime thrillers against Wahkiakum and Morton-White Pass. And that difference certainly showed as the evening wore on Saturday, with Adna overcoming an early hole to run away 58-45 winners.
“You know how when you recharge your batteries, they don’t last as long?” Toledo coach Grady Fallon said. “I thought we were recharged for this one, we did a walkthrough, rested a bit. But in the second half I think we ran out of gas.”
The Pirates (11-4, 6-2 2A EvCo) went into halftime down 31-27, and the deficit was only that small thanks to a Grayson Humphrey 3-pointer at the buzzer. For most of the half, the Pirates just couldn’t put the ball through the basket, and gave up too much both on the outside to Toledo’s guards and in the post to Cooper Fallon.
That all changed in the second half, when Adna held its host to just 14 points, including only one field goal in the entire fourth quarter.
“That’s January in the Central 2B League,” Adna coach Luke Salme said, after jokingly thanking Wahkiakum and MWP for wearing the Riverhawks out. “You better play defense, or you’re not going to win a game.”
With senior Braeden Salme sitting out the entire second half for precautionary reasons and the Riverhawks focusing hard on limiting Humphrey and Trevin Salme on the perimeter, the offensive side of the Adna comeback came from a few different faces.
The Pirates scored 31 points in the second half, and their upperclassman duo of Gavan Muller and Lane Johnson scored 27 of those.
Muller, who didn’t score in the first half, went to work in the third with eight points, capped by a jumper at the horn to give the guests a three-point lead going to the fourth. Then in the final period, he kept at it, converting a three-point play midway through the fourth that handed Cooper Fallon his fifth personal foul.
The junior, who hasn’t been one of the Pirates’ main scoring threats this season, finished with a game-high 16 points.
“I told the other guys, there’s a lot everybody can learn (from him),” Luke Salme said. “He just keeps grinding.”
Johnson, meanwhile, scored 11 of his 14 points in the latter two quarters, moving back and forth between manning the post and driving from the point depending on the lineup on the floor.
“It’s pretty nice to have a 6-3, 200-pound kid that we can play at the 5 or the 1,” Luke Salme said. “He’s played 100 basketball games for me, so he’s pretty calm, which is nice to have.”
Braeden Salme scored eight points in the first half, going 2 for 8 from the field but 4 for 4 from the line, but started feeling his surgically-repaired foot flare up, and after a call to the doctor at halftime, his coach (and father) shut him down for the night.
“I don’t think he re-injured it,” Luke Salme said. “It’s just still healing, and going to hurt like hell.”
Kaven Winters led Toledo with 13 points, but didn’t score from the field in the entire second half. Fallon finished with nine points.
Adna will fit as much rest and relaxation into 24 hours as it can, then open next week with a Monday home game against Kalama. Toledo will be off a bit longer, and return to the court Wednesday against the very same Chinooks.
