Tuesday's 2B Boys Basketball: Tigers Fell Loggers in Seesaw District Opener

NAPAVINE — The Tigers didn’t hold the lead for long here Tuesday night. They just held it when it mattered.

After playing catch up for almost all of the 32 minutes of action against Onalaska in their District 4 playoff opener Napavine saw their fate come down to one final shot from their de facto leader — Dawson Stanley.

With less than 20 seconds remaining on the clock Stanley calmly walked the ball up the court, maneuvered into the lane with a dribble-drive and rose up to shoot all while a Logger defender remained stuck in his pocket like last year’s lint. The resultant shot clanged home through the iron cylinder and gave the home team a 55-54 advantage that would last through the final horn 11 seconds later.

Up until that point Onalaska had rarely trailed. A steal and a coast-to-coast layup by Stanley gave the Tigers their first lead at 19-18 with 6:00 left in the first half but four minutes later Kayden Allison hit a three to put the Loggers back up by two.

When the teams went to the locker room they were tied at 25-all but Onalaska came out of the intermission and promptly scored the first four points. The Loggers looked like they were about to run away with things before Napavine strung together a six-point run of their own to take a 31-29 lead with 4:45 left in the third quarter.

Shortly thereafter the Tigers were forced to sit both of their big men in Keith Olson and Cade Evander after they each picked up their third foul of the evening. With Napavine’s brute enforcers riding the pine for all of three minutes the team’s fragile lead devolved into a 37-31 deficit as the momentum shifted to the Loggers half of the gymnasium.

That’s when Napavine coach Rex Stanley called timeout and decided to roll the dice by putting both Evander and Olson back in the game despite the looming risk of either player fouling out of the game.

“It’s a loser-out game so there’s really nothing to lose for us there,” said Stanley, who pointed out that neither player wound up exhausting their foul quota down the stretch. “That was huge. We obviously need both of those guys in the game.”

Having both Evander and Olson on the floor for most of the contest helped Napavine to best Onalaska 42-28 in the rebound column. Evander posted a double-double by scoring 18 points and leading the Tigers with 14 rebounds. Olson grabbed nine rebounds and sank a few clutch free throws in crunch time to keep his team within striking distance.

“That’s basically what Cade’s done all year. He’s a double-double machine. And for that matter, Keith is too,” said Coach Stanley. “I thought Keith had some monster rebounds in the fourth quarter that allowed us to get extra possessions and we had such a bad shooting night that we needed all of those extra possessions.”

Indeed, Napavine suffered through stretches where it seemed like the cylinder on their end of the court may have constricted somehow. For the game they managed to hit 24 of 58 shots from the floor, including zero of nine from beyond the arc, while knocking down just seven of 13 free throw attempts. Dawson Stanley suffered at the forefront of those shooting woes with a 10 of 30 performance that netted him a game-high 21 points and the game winning shot.

However, Rex Stanley said he knew that no matter how dire his stats were up to that point his nephew wouldn’t shy away from a big shot when the time came.

“He’s never lacked confidence. We just need to do a better job of getting the ball inside and moving it side-to-side,” said Coach Stanley.

Olson said that as the Tigers were busy trying to hold their ground in order to set up the game’s penultimate histrionics they simply tried to focus on the fundamental aspects of the game.

“We were just trying to focus on out-boarding the other team and trying to get more shots up,” said Olson.

The freshman center finished with seven points and made sure to compliment his partner in patrolling the paint.

“He’s really fun to play with. He passes good and he shoots good,” Olson said of Evander.

For his part, Onalaska coach Wayne Nelson also had encouraging words to say about the Tigers’ 6-foot sophomore.

“The guy who hurt us was Evander. We worked hard this week on blocking out. We couldn’t rebound. He wasn’t supposed to catch the ball on the wing and we didn’t do a very good job of that. His 18 hurt us more than Stanley’s 21,” said Nelson.

Onalaska’s offensive effort was led by Kayden Allison’s 17 points while Carter Whitehead added 15 points. Alex Frazier added nine points while Ashton Haight scored eight points and snared a team-high six rebounds. Allison and Whitehead added five rebounds each to the Loggers’ tally.

“Frazier had a nice rebounding game and I thought in the second half Kayden played pretty well and hit some big shots. He guarded their big guy pretty good,” added Nelson.

Still, the Loggers lost the rebound battle to Napavine by 14 and shot only 36 percent on 57 field goal attempts. Perhaps the most glaring statistic was their 5 of 14 performance from the charity stripe which helped the Tigers fulfill their last ditch comeback attempt.

After nearly turning the ball over on their final possession the Loggers called timeout and drew up a final play with less than a second left on the clock. A shot attempt by Whitehead from the corner found its way halfway through the rim before fate and friction sent the ball hurtling back from whence it came and sent the Napavine faithful into an exhale of hysteria.

“We were up by three with 35 seconds to go and you saw the rest. Sometimes it goes like that,” said Nelson. “I told my coaches if we held them to 52 points we’d win. Well, if we would’ve we would’ve, but we didn’t.”

Coach Stanley was just happy his Tigers were able to escape their home floor with a nail-biting victory and earn a spot in the double-elimination portion of the district bracket.

“Give Onalaska credit. They make it hard on you and deny the pass everywhere and they get you playing at a pace you’re not comfortable with,” said Stanley. “We told the kids coming in this is going to be a tight game. I think if this was a true round robin then Onalaska would have beat some people the second time around.”

Napavine will play on Thursday at W.F. West versus Northwest Christian with the game time slated for 6 p.m.

T-Wolves Edge Seagulls in Overtime

RAYMOND — Kaleb Rashoff hit a free throw to send the game to overtime and hit a 3-pointer in overtime to push Morton-White Pass to a 55-54 win over Raymond in a District 4 2B boys basketball tournament game here on Tuesday.

The T-Wolves advance into the double elimination tournament and will take on Kalama at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at W.F. West in Chehalis.

Rashoff recorded a double-double with 14 points, 13 rebounds and was one assist shy of a triple-double with nine assists.

Hayden Young also added 14 points and Dylan Richards chipped in 12 points for the T-Wolves.

Tre Seydel led all scorers with 23 points. Jose Delgado tallied 12 points for the Seagulls.

MWP trailed 11-9 after one quarter, but scored 21 points in the second quarter to lead 30-28 at halftime.

It was a close game throughout the second half. Down by one, MWP ran a set that broke down but Rashoff got the ball and went to the basket and got fouled. Rashoff made the first free throw to tie the game, but missed the second and a shot by Raymond didn’t fall to send the game to overtime.

There were just five total points scored in overtime. Raymond scored first but Rashoff hit a 3-pointer and the Seagulls couldn’t make their free throws down the stretch to preserve the win for MWP.

“I thought we played really hard, did a few good things. The game opened up and we couldn’t buy a basket for the first seven minutes. We come back late in the first and had a really nice second quarter,” MWP coach Chad Cramer said. “I thought we did OK, did just enough to win. It doesn’t matter how you win as long as you do.”

Cramer also complimented the play of Mason Higdon, coming off the bench and contributing six points and six rebounds in eight minutes.

Kalama defeated MWP 60-53 in their only regular season meeting in December.

Winlock Survives Second Half Surge by Wildcats

WESTPORT — Winlock had to steel themselves in the second half in order to leave the beach with a win here Tuesday night as they toppled Ocosta 57-50 in the opening round of the District 4 2B boys basketball tournament.

The game was a loser-out affair that left the Wildcats pounding sand and the Cardinals sailing into the double-elimination portion of the bracket.

Winlock led 28-15 at halftime but the home team had no intention of sinking away quietly like so many ocean sunsets. Instead, the Wildcats outscored the Cardinals 20-9 in the third frame and trailed by only two points with one quarter left to play.

Cole Hatton led Ocosta with 16 points and Cesar Martinez added 11 points.

“I was panicking. They came out and increased the tempo after the half,” said Winlock coach Nick Bamer. “I thought we played the best defensive first half we’ve ever had. We really locked in but then in the third quarter they forced some turnovers on us and got some shots off in transition.”

Over the final eight minutes the Cardinals managed to outpace the Wildcats 20-15 in order to secure the win.

“Noah Patching iced it from the free throw line for us,” Bamer said, noting that the junior guard sank seven of eight attempts from the charity stripe over the final two minutes of the game.

Patching finished with 13 points and Coleson Richendollar added 12 to the Winlock total. Bryce Cline led the way for the Cardinals with a game-high 21 points.

“It was a great all-around team effort. Really we were more concerned about the defense and rebounding than anything. We figured the points would come eventually,” said Bamer. “We also got huge minutes from some JV guys that I just threw in for a spark in (Nolan) Swofford and Fernando Sanchez.”

Winlock will play Adna on Thursday at Rochester with the tip off slated for 7:30 p.m.

Note: Wakiakum defeated South Bend 65-49 in the other District 4 game on Tuesday.