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TOLEDO — For the first time since last season’s District 4 Championship Game, the Adna Pirates and Toledo Riverhawks met on Saturday in Toledo.
The stakes, of course, were not as high as they were on that February night in Chehalis. But, sole possession of first place in the C2BL was on the line, as the two teams entered the game as the final two teams undefeated in league play.
The Pirates got their revenge on the Riverhawks, shutting them down after halftime to come away with a 61-51 victory.
In the second half, Adna held Toledo to just 18 points, including just four points in the third. In that frame, the Pirates extended their lead to 13.
“I’m pumped for the kids,” Adna coach Luke Salme said. “What I’m most proud of is how locked in we were defensively … It was the best commitment to executing a game plan that we’ve had. And you gotta do that thing if you ever want to beat Toledo. Pumped that the kids took that one as a challenge and then executed it.”
The Adna offense wasn’t as efficient in that third quarter, but a 40-point first half gave the Pirates a good cushion.
Trevin Salme kicked off a 24-point second quarter with three straight three-pointers, a welcome sign for the junior that had been struggling from deep until recently.
He finished Saturday with four, just two days after hitting five in a win over Toutle Lake.
“We’re all excited when Trev’s hitting threes,” Luke Salme said. “If he’s going to hit threes along with being able to attack and get things at the rim, that makes up pretty dynamic.”
Salme went on to finish with a game-high 23 points in addition to nine rebounds, five assists, and a pair of steals.
Behind him, it was a balanced effort. Grayson Humphrey hit double-digits with 10 points, four steals, and three rebounds, and both Landen Cline and Kannen Kephart scored seven points. Kephart also brought down four rebounds.
Inside, Jackson Knittle and James Greenwood combined for nine points, and they also did a good job limiting Toledo’s Cooper Fallon for stretches throughout the game.
“They weren’t afraid of the moment,” Luke Salme said. “They picked their spots. They tried to go get a bucket at the right times. And that’s pretty impressive for those guys … I was pumped that they played within themselves.”
Fallon still had his fair share of moments throughout in a losing effort, scoring 19 points and bringing game 13 rebounds.
With that mark on the boards, he surpassed 1,000 career rebounds, and he joined Artem Wallace (Class of 2005) as the only players in Toledo history to score 1,000 points and tally 1,000 rebounds in his high school career.
Toledo coach Grady Fallon said that there were some handshakes and hugs for Cooper Fallon in acknowledgement of his accomplishment postgame, he is sure that Cooper would have traded it for a victory.
“It is kind of anticlimactic,” Grady Fallon said. “But we can look back, hopefully, after the next couple of times we play these guys, with a smile on our face.”
The Toledo offense as a whole was inconsistent, specifically in the first, when the Riverhawks turned the ball over five times, and in the third, when they went cold from the field and scored just four points.
“Every possession matters when they’re so good,” Grady Fallon said. “It was going to be a battle. But I told the guys, it’s like, ‘who’s gonna execute tonight?’ I think they did a better job.”
Trevin Gale scored 12 points, Adam Kruger scored 10, and Eli Weeks added seven points, five rebounds, and three assists.
At 8-2 overall and 7-1 in league play, the Riverhawks are still in second in the C2BL standings. They’ll host Onalaska on Wednesday to kickoff the second half of their league slate.
“I told the guys after that I don’t want to have any regrets,” Grady Fallon said. “You play your butts off, the best team wins, and we get better from it.
“If we get better because of it, we lost a game,” he added with a shrug. “We’ll be ready to play the next game.”
At 12-2 overall and 10-0 in C2BL play, the Pirates now find themselves alone atop the C2BL standings. They will host Rainier on Wednesday.
