The Philomath High School boys basketball team trailed by just two points late in the third but Marshfield came up with a late-quarter surge, went up by eight by the start of the fourth and then finished strong on the scoreboard to take a 56-37 win over the Warriors in the semifinals of the Les Schwab South Coast Tournament in Coos Bay.
“The score was not indicative of how close the game was,” PHS coach Blake Ecker said. “We’re getting better … we need to clean up more little things.”
The Warriors (2-5) will wrap up the tournament at 2:15 p.m. Saturday in the third-place game against Class 5A Mountain View in Marshfield High’s main gym. The Cougars (3-3) lost in the semifinals to Redmond, 52-34.
The officials blew their whistles often in Friday’s Philomath-Marshfield game with 42 on the evening — 21 on each team. That led to 46 total free throws and the Pirates had the upper hand at the foul line with a 76.0% performance (19 of 25) compared to 47.6% for the Warriors (10 of 21).
Marshfield had a hot hand early and led 20-12 after the first quarter behind the shooting of senior Luke Jackson, sophomore Keller Vinyard and senior Steel Carpenter. Jackson, in particular, stung the Warriors with two 3-pointers in the first period.
But Philomath kept its deficit to single digits with senior Caleb Russell, sophomore Jamin Peters and senior Hudson Raab putting points on the board.
In the second quarter, neither team did much offensively and the Pirates held a 26-17 lead at halftime.
The Warriors outscored Marshfield in the third quarter and as mentioned, cut the deficit to just two at one point. Senior Logan Matthews and junior Josiah Peters both hit 3-pointers to spark the offense.
Marshfield persevered the threat, however, and got 3-pointers of their own from Jackson and Carpenter in the third and then found the hoop consistently in the fourth, including an eight-of-10 performance at the free-throw line.
Jackson and Carpenter led the Marshfield offense with 21 and 20 points, respectively.
For the Warriors, Jamin Peters finished with 10 points on four field goals and 2 of 5 from the foul line. Russell added eight.
