The Philomath High School boys basketball team’s season ended Saturday night at Seaside with a 38-34 loss in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs.
The Warriors finish with a 13-11 record while the Seagulls advance to the state tournament at Forest Grove with a 17-8 record.
“I think we became a lot better team than most people anticipated,” PHS coach Blake Ecker said about the season. “They really bought in and started to listen to what we definitely wanted to do and when the kids started doing that, we put ourselves in a position to be successful.”
No. 8-seeded Seaside trailed most of the way but rallied in the fourth quarter to get the win. Ninth-seeded Philomath had held leads of 13-4 after the first, 20-14 at halftime and 27-20 going into the fourth.
“We were playing defense flying around and really stifling them” Ecker said about Philomath’s performance early in the game. “All we did was play man-to-man — we didn’t throw any junk at them or anything like that. We made enough shots to have an OK lead at halftime.”
Turnovers were an issue, however, with 22 in the game — 14 of those in the second half.
“In the third quarter, we got up by 10 and I kind of thought we could put it away but we just couldn’t execute offensively,” Ecker said. “We would hold them but then just had a lot of turnovers and gave them a lot of second-chance opportunities — especially in the fourth quarter. We couldn’t take care of the ball.”
In addition to the unforced errors, Philomath made just 6 of 11 free throws.
“Those two things have been an Achilles for us all year long,” Ecker said. “They came out in the fourth with a lot of pressure and we didn’t handle it very well.”
On offense, the Warriors were not able to find any sort of rhythm and court vision was an issue.
“A lot of mistakes were our own,” Ecker said. “We could have done a lot better — missing wide-open guys on the layins with not being able to get them the ball. Just couldn’t get them, just couldn’t pass it in.”
In the fourth quarter, Seaside took its first lead with about 4 minutes remaining. Senior Barett Blodgett scored 10 of his 15 points over those final 8 minutes and senior Jordan Westerholm buried a key 3-pointer.
Philomath trailed by six before senior Caleb Russell responded with a 3-pointer of his own to cut the deficit in half but the home team was able to hit its foul shots to finish out the game.
Junior Josiah Peters had a team-high nine points for Philomath and Russell finished with eight. For Seaside, in addition to Blodgett’s 15, senior Jake White added 10.
It’s the first time since 2019 that the Warriors haven’t advanced to the OSAA’s 4A tournament.
Philomath and Seaside had similar starts to their seasons with struggles in the first few weeks. The Seagulls lost five of their first six games and ended 4-7 in nonconference games. In the team’s conference opener, Seaside lost at home by 20 points.
But the Seagulls flipped a switch and haven’t lost since that league-opening setback. With the win over Philomath, the Seagulls extended their winning streak to 13 straight.
The Warriors, meanwhile, lost four of their first five and were just 2-6 heading into a tournament in late December at Alaska. After reaching the finals of that event and then winning their final two nonconference games, Philomath won seven of 10 games in the conference to clinch second place behind Cascade.
Both teams had plenty of time to prepare for each other with automatic berths into the 16-team state playoff field — Seaside as champions of the Cowapa League. It was the first game in 11 days for both teams.
“One of my first thoughts is only one of our (conference) teams got into the final eight so that’s been surprising,” Ecker said. “I thought we’d get a couple or more in so that’s frustrating.”
Only conference champion Cascade remains in contention for a state title out of the Oregon West. The top-seeded Cougars got past 16th-seeded St. Helens, 67-62, in the first round and will play Seaside in the quarterfinals Thursday.
The third team out of the Oregon West that made the state playoffs was Newport. The Cubs lost at Phoenix, 64-60. Stayton and North Marion were both ranked in the top 10 but failed to advance past play-in games.
“Overall, you know, I’m proud of our guys,” Ecker said in summing up the season. “They should be proud of their accomplishments.”
