The outside shooting of senior Grant Niemann in the third quarter and the inside muscle of senior Zack Powers in the fourth quarter helped Philomath High pull away from Astoria Friday evening for a 61-47 victory.
Throw in the consistent scoring of junior Josiah Peters and a spark off the bench in sophomore Esias Sapp and the visitors were simply not able to keep pace with a PHS squad playing for just the second time this season in its home gym.
Gallery: PHS boys basketball vs. Astoria (Jan. 3, 2025)
A collection of photos from Philomath High’s 61-47 boys basketball win at home over Astoria on Friday.
Powers scored eight of his game-high 18 points in the first quarter but it was during crunch time over the final eight minutes when he really showed his strength. In fact, it’s pushing people around underneath that he appears to love most about the game.
“I enjoy it a lot,” Powers said. “I like being in there, getting big and just pushing my way around and getting rebounds. It’s definitely exciting. It doesn’t feel great when you get hit sometimes but you know, it’s part of the job.”
An example of his presence was visible late in the fourth. Astoria had momentary thoughts of a comeback midway through the quarter after pulling to within 10 points of the lead. With 2:14 left, Powers powered inside for an offensive board and scored. And 22 seconds later, he did it again for a 16-point lead.
Game over.
“We got it inside to Zack and he had a heck of a game,” PHS coach Blake Ecker said. “Grant hit some 3s that were huge … hitting those 3s opens up the middle.”
Niemann definitely found a rhythm from beyond the 3-point arc in the victory. It’s a part of the game that he spends considerable time on.
“When we get to practice and before we get into the drills and stuff, I usually shoot a lot of 3s,” Niemann said.
Niemann suffered a knee injury late in the season in football and he was cleared just in time for basketball season. As the team works through the schedule, he has been seeing more and more playing time and earned a few starts, including against Astoria.
Not showing up in the scoring summary was the exceptional presence that senior Caleb Russell brought to the floor.
“He had much more of a court presence tonight … much more of a leader,” Ecker said.
After the Fishermen had cut Philomath’s lead to 10 with 4:16 remaining and threatened to get the deficit down to single digits, Russell took advantage of an Astoria turnover and scored — his only two points of the night but at a key time to keep the opponent in its place.
The Warriors led by as many as six on three occasions in the second quarter before Astoria cut it to two with 17 seconds left in the half. But Sapp hit a 3-pointer before the halftime buzzer to give the Warriors momentum heading into the locker room.
Ecker said he felt the team played lethargic in the first half.
“So we had to challenge the guys (at halftime) and in the second, we stepped up a little bit better, hit some shots and started playing with more energy,” Ecker said. “We’re pretty physical inside so that’s nice to have and they work pretty hard at it, so that’s good.”
Philomath steadily pulled away in the third quarter. Niemann hit all three of his 3-pointers during the eight-minute stretch and also scored a key hoop at the 2:17 mark after a pinpoint pass from Russell. Two of Niemann’s 3-pointers came during the third’s final 1:36.
Asked about what it will take for Philomath to play well in the conference, Niemann said he believes the team needs to continue working on communication while playing defense.
“We’re kind of having problems with matching up and transition … so just hustling and transition,” he said.
Powers also stressed the communication piece along with a few other components.
“I feel like we need to get up and down the court better, play a little bit more defense and communicate a lot,” he said. “We definitely struggle with getting up and down the court. I feel like if we can get that part down — I know a lot of the teams in our league like to push the ball — then I think we’ll be fine.”
Powers said he has seen the team improve from week-to-week as the players get used to each other on the court.
“I feel like once we start getting into it (the game) … we start communicating better and we just know what we’re doing,” Powers said. “That comes with more playing with each other.”
Niemann feels the team turned a corner during last week’s Alaska trip.
“We had to basically be together 24/7 and that brought us together as a whole,” Niemann said. “We had a pretty exciting game up there against Ketchikan — the crowd was huge and that definitely brought us together when we won that game.”
In addition to Powers’ 18 points, Peters finished with 15, Sapp had 12 and Niemann 11.
Quin Gohr and Archer Hawkins led Astoria with 12 and 11 points, respectively.
Philomath now takes an 11-day break from competition before resuming the season Jan. 14 at Gladstone.
“I’m a little nervous about that,” Ecker admitted. “We’ve got to figure out how to simulate games. You’ve got to keep that consistency in basketball.”
