Pulling away behind a strong defensive effort, the Philomath High girls posted a 17-point victory Thursday over Scappoose on the second day of the team’s home basketball tournament.
The Warriors established control early by allowing no field goals in the first quarter while building a double-digit lead and went on to a 46-29 victory.
“On the defensive end, we did a fantastic job,” PHS coach Ben Silva said. “In the first quarter, I don’t think they had any field goals, just three points from the free-throw line. So the defensive effort was fantastic and set the tone for us the whole game.”
Philomath (6-2) will next face Marist Catholic (5-5) at 3:30 p.m. Friday. The Spartans are 1-1 in the tournament with a 30-28 win over Scappoose and a 46-42 loss to Sutherlin. The Warriors lost 38-33 on Wednesday to Sutherlin.
In the win over the Indians, Philomath led from start to finish with a 14-3 advantage by the end of the first quarter. Junior Zoee Howard sank a pair of foul shots and sophomore Emily Taunisila completed a traditional three-point play for a 5-0 PHS lead 2:40 into the contest.
After Scappoose (5-4) got on the scoreboard with free throws, Philomath put together a 15-1 run over the last four minutes of the first and first two minutes of the second. Freshman Reagan Heiken scored after the Warriors secured the ball on a turnover under their own net and then junior Anneka Steen buried a 3-pointer and followed soon after with a steal and a hoop. Heiken added a couple of free throws for a 14-2 lead.
Scappoose managed another free throw late in the first. Early in the second, sophomore Shaylee May hit a layup, Taunisila sank a jumper and Steen finished in transition for a 20-3 lead.
“Offensively, we were efficient and effective, we got the job done,” Silva said. “I feel like we’re getting really close to being able to click on all cylinders offensively. It’s just a bad pass here, a missed layup there — once we get those things cleaned up, we’ll be very tough especially if we have a defensive effort like we had tonight.”
Philomath has five more nonconference games on the schedule before getting into Oregon West play.
“Like I said, the offense is good, it’s close,” Silva said. “It’s a few little things here and there that kind of slows down for periods of time. But then you see glimpses where we share the ball really well and execute really well. So, if we could just do that on a more consistent basis.”
Early in the third quarter, Scappoose got back to within 11 on a Peyton Lennox 3-pointer — one of three for her in the game — to make things interesting. But the Warriors had an immediate answer with an 8-0 run that pretty much put the game away. During that stretch, Steen hit a pair of free throws, Heiken scored back-to-back baskets with assists by Howard on both and Steen found the hoop after an offensive rebound.
In the fourth, Philomath’s lead hovered around 20 for most of the quarter with the biggest lead being 22 on a putback by junior Mica Boynton with 1:39 remaining.
Three PHS players hit double figures for scoring with Heiken’s 12, Steen’s 11 and Taunisila’s 10.
Lennox had a game-high 16 for the Indians.
Scappoose will wrap up play in the tournament at 2 p.m. Friday against Sutherlin.
