SPOKANE — Taking on its league rival for the third time this season, the No. 11 Mossyrock boys basketball team couldn’t spring an upset, and fell for the third time this season to the No. 4 Willapa Valley, 77-58.
Playing from behind for most of the game, but battling and staying close throughout, the Vikings of Mossyrock were on the wrong end of a 31-17 run in the fourth quarter to allow the Vikings of Menlo to pull away and win.
Valley will now advance to play in the state semifinals on Friday, while Mossyrock plays in a consolation semifinal against Cusick or Wellpinit at 12:15 p.m. Friday.
“They’re a good team and they know us well,” Mossyrock coach Tom Kelly said. “They didn’t run anything new at us, they’re just a good team.”
Valley shot a blistering 67% of shots inside the 3-point line, and added five 3-pointers in a stellar shooting night for the Vikings West, with Riley Pearson scoring a game-high 24 points and Kolten Fluke adding 12 points.
Mossyrock, meanwhile, attacked the boards and fought for extra shots, but shot just 32% from the field as a team. Keegan Kolb led the way with 16 points and four rebounds, and Zack Munoz scored 15 points. Cooper Young made a trio of 3s and finished with 13 points and eight rebounds for Mossy.
For now, Mossyrock will look forward to playing someone for the first time Friday, in a loser-out contest with a place in the trophy round on the line for Saturday.
“We’ve worked on everything we’ve needed to,” Kelly said. “We’ll be playing someone different, which will be nice. I hate playing teams in our own league, because we can’t change anything now. We are who we are.”
