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The Chronicle - Centralia

Vikings go cold in OT, fall to Ravens

Overtime was not kind to the Mossyrock girls on Friday, as the Vikings were blanked in the extra period of a 58-54 loss to Raymond-South Bend.

The loss snapped the Vikings’ three-game winning streak.

Mossyrock was playing exceptionally well early on, opening up a double-digit lead in the first and holding onto a six-point lead entering the fourth. 

The Ravens stormed back to tie it, as RSB’s Kassi Koski hit three threes in the fourth to help force overtime.

Raymond-South Bend’s Avalyn Stigall hit the lone field goal of the OT when she drilled a three of her own.

“We lost their shooters at some bad times,” Mossyrock coach Nick Rashoff said. “And they made us pay.”

Kendall Cournyer finished with a team-high 18 points, while Maci Rashoff added 16. Adyson Barrows and Chesney Schultz both added seven, while Calliope Schultz, Brooke Schwartz, and Taylor Schwartz each added two.

“We played well tonight,” coach Rashoff said. “But we need to keep the good things going for the whole 32 minutes. Our effort is there and we are improving each game. It was a good game and it’s good for us to play the close games.”

Mossyrock (5-2) will look to get back in the win column on Monday at home against Montesano.

Winlock wins third straight by topping Toutle Lake

Defense was the name of the game for Winlock on Friday, as the Cardinals shut down Toutle Lake to earn a 50-40 victory and push their win streak to three games.

The Cardinals trailed by nine after the first, but chipped away over the next two quarters to take a slim lead into the fourth.

They pulled away in the final frame, doubling up the Ducks in the fourth to ice the game.

Freddy Patching shot 4 for 8 from deep en route to a team-high 18 points, while Landen Cline had a great all-around night with 17 points, eight steals, six assists, and five rebounds.

Carter Svenson added six points, and Mason Ruiz scored four points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Thanks to its three-game winning streak, Winlock will enter the new year at 4-4. The Cardinals will be back on the court on Jan. 3 against Rainier.

Napavine suffers first loss of season at Okanogan

The Napavine boys basketball team’s three-game winning streak to open the season came to an end on the road on Friday, as the Tigers fell to Okanogan 70-62.

Napavine led by six after the first, but was outscored 42-21 over the next two quarters to dig a hole too big to climb out of.

Karsen Denault and Jack Nelson posted double-doubles, with Denault scoring 28 and grabbing 13 rebounds while Nelson scored 10 points and hauled in 10 rebounds of his own.

Cal Bullock just missed a double-double of his own, as the junior guard finished with 10 points and nine rebounds.

The Tigers (3-1, 3-0 C2BL) won’t have to wait long to try to bounce back as they’ll play Brewster Saturday morning.

T-Birds dominate Cougars for third consecutive win

It’s been three games and three dominant wins for the Tumwater boys basketball team, which defeated Capital 69-39 on Friday for its third win in a row.

The T-Birds burst out of the gates strong, opening up a 16-point lead after one, and they pulled away for good by scoring 38 points after halftime.

Sahara Anthony led Tumwater with 16 points and five assists, and Bryce Morgan scored 13 points while adding five rebounds, three assists, and three steals.

Braeden Konrad scored nine points, hauled in five rebounds, and dished out four assists, while Jake Dillon added 11 points and Beckett Wall scored two and had four assists of his own.

The T-Birds (3-0) will be off until after Christmas, when they’ll head to Adna to face Montesano and Adna on Dec. 27 and Dec. 28.

Loggers take down Vikings for first win

The Onalaska boys basketball team  won its first game of the season Friday night, as the Loggers defeated Mossyrock 67-45 on Friday.

“You can just see the weight was lifted for the guys in the locker room,” Onalaska coach Fred Sturza said

Sturza mentioned the first four losses — specifically the Winlock loss where the Loggers let a late double-digit lead slip away — saying it’s great to put those losses in the past.

“To be able to close it out and finish strong is the message we’ve been pushing,” Sturza said. “Being able to get one like this and close it was huge for morale and confidence for all of us.”

Cooper Lawrence led the way Friday, scoring 27 points. He did nearly all of his damage in the first and fourth. He helped Onalaska build an early lead by scoring 13 points in the first, and he added 12 more in the fourth to help ice it late.

“We’ve been harping on him to take more shots,” Sturza said. “He finally did and had a big night for us. It’s a huge lift to the team. Having that extra weapon will be big. It's just gonna bode well for us moving forward.”

Lawrence also added 10 rebounds for the double-double, and he nearly hit a triple-double with eight steals.

Blaze Underhill added 12 points and four rebounds, and Justin Jacoby added eight points and six rebounds.

Ethan Johnson led the Vikings with 24, while Shaun Fry scored 10 and Colby Cournyer added five.

Onalaska (1-4, 1-4 C2BL) will play again Saturday against Rainier, while the Vikings (2-4, 2-4 C2BL) will be back in action next Friday, Dec. 27 at Napavine.

Meldrum's big night helps Mountaineers overcome slow start, top T-Wolves

The Rainier High School boys basketball team was in dire need of something positive before winter break, with three starters lost in a week and the Mountaineers falling twice to Central 2B League contenders.

Senior guard Jake Meldrum came to the rescue, dropping 30 points in a 53-40 home win over Morton-White Pass Friday, Dec. 20. Rainier quickly scrapped a first quarter at the end of which it trailed 9-2, and the Mountaineers buried the Timberwolves in the second quarter and beyond thanks to a flurry of buckets from Meldrum.

“Right now we need him to score. That’s exactly what he did,” Rainier head coach Ben Sheaffer said of Meldrum, who, despite only shooting 6-20 from the field, cashed in on 14 of his 16 free-throw attempts.

Rainier had a rough opening quarter, missing all 12 of its field goals. T-Wolves senior guard Noah Troy got the road team’s offense going with a couple of treys, forcing Sheaffer to spend a timeout trailing 7-0. Trailing 9-2 entering the second, the Mountaineers offense responded as if the first quarter had never happened.

Sophomore Jordan Pringle’s layup 29 seconds into the frame marked Rainier’s first field goal of the night, and they continued to flow. James Meldrum followed up a miss with a putback jumper, and Jake Meldrum gave his squad the lead with two triples of his own.

Rainier closed the first half on a 23-3 run, including scoring 19 of the final 20 points tallied. Jake Meldrum and Morton-White Pass each scored a dozen, and Rainier led 25-12 at the half. Junior guard Matheus Mckitrick, who has seen a recent uptick in minutes with the injuries to Peyton Sheaffer and Josh Meldrum, gave the Mountaineers a spark on defense by picking up the T-Wolves ball-handlers full court.

“We have some guys that are just trying to gain confidence that haven’t played a ton of varsity basketball, and they’re kind of waiting for somebody else to do it,” Ben Sheaffer said of the flip from the first quarter to the second. “At some point, it’s like, ‘Hey, quit looking around. You’re him.’ They got comfortable, but I think defensively, when Matheus came in and we started picking up full court, he injected some juice into all of us, and that’s when we got going.”

Another reason for Rainier’s big second quarter was Morton-White Pass starting guard Judah Kelly sitting for some time due to foul trouble. The T-Wolves also made only two of seven free throws in the first half.

“I might not have agreed with all the calls, but I think we could have moved the ball better and moved without the ball better,” T-Wolves head coach Kevin Dunlap said. “And we could have made our free throws.”

A drastic flip would not occur for the third straight quarter, as Jake Meldrum proceeded with his offensive tear into the third quarter. He added his third triple of the game along with seven of eight free throws to give him 24 points and Rainier a 39-23 advantage through three.

Despite trailing by as many as 23 points in the second half, the T-Wolves continued to play with aggression and heart. Those traits made Dunlap proud of his team, but shooting just 5-15 from the charity stripe hurt their chances of a comeback in a 53-40 loss. 

“I felt like we continued to battle all the way until the final buzzer, and that’s big. Shots started falling. We hit some big ones there at the end,” Dunlap said. “There was just not enough time left in the game to make it happen. When you get down that much, it’s really hard to overcome a deficit like that. You’ve got to really come out with a spark, and I felt like we waited too long to catch that spark.”

Jake Meldrum led all scorers with 30 points, while Pringle was impressive with five points and 13 rebounds in his second straight start in place of Peyton Sheaffer. The Mountaineers struggled to pull down defensive rebounds in their losses to Adna and Napavine, and Pringle made sure Morton-White Pass didn’t get many second-chance opportunities.

“We played a lot of zone tonight, and the concern, as always, in a zone, is rebounding because you don’t always have an assignment. There were times where we struggled a little bit rebounding, but overall, I thought we did a pretty good job,” Ben Sheaffer said.

After scoring 34 points in a win over Toutle Lake on Wednesday, Kelly was held to just nine points against Rainier, eight of which came in the fourth quarter. Troy paced the T-Wolves with 14 points, and Logan Mays contributed 13.

“We had a lot of focus on Judah. He’s a great player, and I thought we did very well. He scored a few late, but I think we held him down pretty well for the majority of the game,” Sheaffer said.

The Mountaineers (5-2, 3-2 C2BL) win the first game of a back-to-back, as they head to Onalaska (1-4, 1-4 C2BL) at 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 21. Morton-White Pass (3-3, 2-3 C2BL) gets a week off before hosting Onalaska at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 27. 

Columbian Newspaper

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