TENINO — Austin Gonia walked around the court with a stone cold expression on his face. Will Feltus made sure to celebrate with a little swagger.
Those two and the cavalcade of seniors on the Tenino High School boys basketball team were on the verge of seeing their season come to an abrupt end on Wednesday night.
“At the beginning of the fourth, I was like ‘I don’t want the season to end and you guys don’t want to either,’” Gonia said. “Let’s be tired tomorrow.”
For the last time in their prep careers, they walked off their home court behind the cheers of another raucous crowd.
Gonia lit up the scoreboard with a career-high 38 points and Feltus delivered two dagger 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to keep the Beavers season alive with a 66-50 triumph over Columbia (White Salmon) in a Class 1A District 4 elimination game on Brock Court.
Of the 26 points scored by Tenino in the final seven-plus minutes of regulation, Gonia and Feltus were responsible for 20 of them. The other six were split between fellow senior Jack Burkhardt and sophomore Jaxson Gore.
“We were moving the ball around and Austin was hitting tough shots,” Feltus said. “We were just going.”
That duo were starters as eighth graders under Ryan Robertson. They’ve seen the growth from then to now not only in themselves, but the program.
Gonia mentioned the word “culture,” and Feltus echoed about “chemistry.”
Even Robertson was nearly left speechless to describe how those two showed up when Tenino’s backs were against the wall.
“Austin is a great leader and for him to have 38, that was so fun,” the Beavers head coach said. “I’ve enjoyed watching (Will) grow as a basketball player; he’s very talented. He’s pretty dang good.”
Tenino (9-13) was down four when Gonia scored four straight to tie it, then Feltus drained a wing trifecta to give it the lead for good. After Columbia made it a seven-point deficit, Feltus put the game on ice with another 3-pointer.
Of the right-hander’s 16 points, 11 of them came in the final stanza. All while playing not at 100 percent with a knee issue that was re-aggravated in the quarterfinal loss to La Center.
That wasn’t going to keep him off the court.
“I had to wrap it up before the game, but I pushed through,” Feltus said.
Gonia, who also snared down 13 rebounds, started out on fire with 12 first quarter points – including a personal 10-2 flurry – to put the Beavers up 11 early. The forward scored at least eight points in the final three frames.
“Feelings are definitely high,” he said. “The leadership part. They look up to me and I look up to all of them.”
Still, the Bruins didn’t wilt under the pressure.
Mason Hamilton scored a team-high 20 points and the shooting from beyond the arc kept them in the contest and eventually put them in front. Hunter Wang drained a triple that gave a 35-34 lead, their first since the opening bucket of the game.
Hamilton and Aidan Hainline also made shots from downtown to routinely answer the Beavers. White Salmon controlled the offensive glass and had several second and third chances.
That aspect of the game flipped to Tenino’s favor in crunch time.
“This game was not a coaches’ game, it was up to the kids to make the plays and down the stretch, they really did,” Robertson said.
Foul trouble kept Hamilton in check and Tenino allowed him to take just one shot in the last period. Wang added 12 points for Columbia.
“Him getting out early in the fourth quarter helped us,” Gonia said. “They had no one to go to in the end.”
Standing in the Beavers way of a second straight state tournament appearance is King’s Way Christian, who lost to Fort Vancouver in the semis. The two sides did not meet in the regular season.
Tip is slated for 2:30 p.m. on Ron Brown Court in Centralia.
“King’s is just solid,” Robertson said. “Let’s wear different colors and let’s get after it.”
The basketball story of the seniors for Tenino still has one chapter left to be written. Feltus believes there’s still more pen to paper to come over the next handful of days.
“We’ve been playing with each other since third grade,” Feltus said. “Our chemistry and our defense will get us back to Yakima.”
