PE ELL — Complexity doesn’t define the game of basketball. Even the intricacies through the coaching lenses are simple for a beginner to understand.
Backdoor cuts. Weakside help. Pick-and-roll. Hi-low offense. Zone or man-to-man defense.
Still, three words end up symbolizing the game: Make or Miss.
For the Pe Ell High School boys basketball team, the third word happened more often than the first when the fourth quarter arrived on Tuesday night.
Just two made field goals in the final eight minutes and scoreless for the last five-plus was the difference in the Trojans’ dropping a vital Columbia Valley League tilt to Wahkiakum 48-39 on their home court.
“It has been kind of bugging us a little bit,” Pe Ell head coach Ross Hojem said. “Had good looks coming down and it is a mental thing. Really comes down to our confidence.”
The two sides were tied in the loss column in the league standings with a week until the Class 1B District 4 tournament. Since the Mules swept the Trojans in the two regular season meetings, the former is the two seed and the latter will be the three.
Pe Ell will have to hit the road for the quarterfinal next Wednesday.
“We have to play at 200 percent to be successful,” Hojem said.
Cooper Carlson gave the Mules a 37-34 advantage to end the third and after back-to-back buckets by both sides, Pe Ell’s Liam McGrath buried a wing triple to knot the game at 39 apiece.
Gage Robinson, Wahkiakum’s 6-foot-4 post who notched a game-high 20 points, put the Mules in front for good with five minutes of regulation
Hojem admitted there were talks about going man-to-man, but opted to not pull the trigger. He also didn’t call a timeout after a Joe Merz 3-pointer made it 46-39
“Sometimes as a coach, you don’t want to give up (a timeout),” Hojem said. “I just wanted to save them.”
Much of the contest was a punch-counterpunch type of contest. Prior to the fourth, the largest lead for either team was five points. There were five lead changes and three ties – all the ties taking place in the third.
Wahkiakum (11-9, 6-2 CVL) went more inside to Robinson to combat the Trojans’ 2-3 zone defense. It used sprees of 9-2 and 5-0 to take the lead back in the third period.
“We learned some things tonight,” Mules head coach Rob Garrett said. “He made us a lot better team.”
Pe Ell (9-10, 6-3) generated 17 turnovers on the night and turned plenty of them into points. An 8-0 outburst early in the opening stanza gave it a small cushion. Calan McCarty scored six of his team-best 10 points in the period.
He was the lone Trojan in double figures. McGrath had seven and three different Trojans jotted down six.
“They did a good job,” Garrett said of Pe Ell. “All five of the guys on the floor looked a lot better.”
Hojem is aiming for his group to continue building up chemistry, communication and becoming what he calls ‘a real team.’
“I feel good for our kids,” Hojem said. “If we can just finish, I think we'll be OK.”
