FOREST GROVE — The Philomath High School girls basketball team has developed a tradition of bringing home hardware from the state tournament. And following Saturday afternoon’s game against Cascade, the Warriors accepted the fifth-place trophy.
As it turns out, perhaps they should have at least a share of third place.
Although the final score showed Cascade beating Philomath, 35-33, an apparent scoring error in the tournament’s official scorebook awarded the Cougars with two points that it did not score.
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The final statistics for the game as reported on the Oregon School Activities Association’s website includes play-by-play and the description showed a basket was credited to Cascade sophomore Rozalynn Schmunk with 4:47 left in the second quarter. However, as witnessed by media covering the game and confirmed by the NFHS Network’s video feed, Schmunk grabbed a rebound at that moment on a missed Philomath shot.
Could the official scorer have credited the Cascade player with a basket instead of a rebound?
“The score was messed up and I don’t know what the actual score was,” PHS coach Ben Silva said a few minutes after coming out of the locker room following a postgame chat with his team.
A few hours later after video from the game could be checked to confirm the scoring error, Silva commented further.
“It’s frustrating … you would hope that they would work to get it right,” Silva said via phone interview. “I just wish there would’ve been a way for them to adjust that. But there were also things we could’ve done to not make it a two-point game. I knew they made a fix (to the score) but they half-fixed it.”
Silva is referring to two points that had been erroneously taken away from Philomath late in the first half. The mistake was discovered at halftime and two points were added back to Philomath’s total. However, Cascade’s total remained the same based on the incorrect scorebook when it should’ve had two points less.
Here’s what happened:
With 1:41 remaining in the second quarter, Silva called a timeout after PHS junior Zoee Howard secured a rebound but was trapped in the corner. During the timeout, game officials walked over to the scorer’s table and the score was adjusted to Cascade 15, Philomath 12.
The NFHS Network commentator remarked, “So they put two more points on the board there for Cascade. … I don’t know where that two points came from. It should be 13 for Cascade on my book.” The other commentator on the broadcast said, “I’ve got 13 as well.”
The officials spent more time at the scorer’s table and when play resumed, the scoreboard showed Cascade 15, Philomath 12 when the score was actually Philomath 14, Cascade 13.
When the first half ended, the scoreboard showed Cascade with a 17-12 lead when the actual score should’ve had the Cougars leading by one point, 15-14. After more discussions at the scorer’s table, which included input from Philomath’s scorekeeper, the Warriors were given back the two points that had been taken away earlier to make the score, 17-14. But the two points added to Cascade’s score — again, apparently based on the incorrect entry on the basket with 4:47 left in the second quarter — were not discovered and not taken off the board.
The Philomath News contacted the OSAA’s sports information director with details on that sequence in the game and also asked questions about whether or not some sort of action would be done. The matter was referred to the OSAA’s Peter Weber, executive director, and Monica Maxwell, assistant executive director, but they were not immediately available for comment.
On the court, the two teams played a close game the rest of the way with every point making a difference in the final outcome.
With the score reportedly 30-30 with 1:18 remaining, a key moment in the game occurred when senior Ahnika Tryon was whistled for a blocking foul, a call that easily could’ve been an offensive charge on the Cougars. The foul sent Cascade senior Maddie Dustin to the free-throw line where she sank two foul shots for what was believed to be a 32-30 lead.
“I thought Ahnika Tryon did a great job taking a charge there at the end when they called a block but whatever, calls don’t always go your way,” Silva said. “She was camped there and hadn’t moved for a while and got plowed into.”
Philomath turned the ball over on a traveling call with 53 seconds left. Cascade nearly lost the ball when Howard had an opportunity for a steal but the momentum carried her out of bounds. The Cougars took a timeout with 37 seconds left and when play resumed, ran down the clock. With 17 seconds remaining, Dustin sank what appeared to be a desperation 3-pointer but it was nothing but net and gave Cascade what was believed to be a 35-30 lead.
On the other end, Howard took a pass from sophomore Shaylee May, scored inside and drew a foul but only 1 second remained. The scoreboard showed a 35-32 lead for Cascade (although it was actually 33-32). Howard sank the free throw to make it 35-33.
Cascade was able to get the ball in play for the final second and the Cougars celebrated.
“We were definitely motivated, especially since we were playing Cascade, our rivals,” Tryon said afterward. “We weren’t down so much on our loss yesterday and we were like, ‘let’s just go into this game and win it.’”
Howard wanted the third-place trophy to send Tryon out with a bang.
“We wanted to win it for Tryon to place as high as we can for her just because she’s our only senior,” said Howard, who had a team-high 12 points. “But we always look forward to playing Cascade because they’re such a good competitor.”
Tryon said at halftime, the team didn’t need any speeches on energy. The focus was more on execution. Howard had a similar perspective.
“We were just talking in the locker room that our energy was something that we definitely brought to state,” Howard said. “We came here to prove something, so you need to bring energy every game. That’s what really kept this going.”
Philomath really brought the heat during a stretch late in the third quarter. The Warriors’ defensive pressure appeared to rattle Cascade’s offense.
“That’s been really big this year for us — we’ve been holding teams to below 30 for the majority of the year,” Howard said about Philomath’s D.
Dustin scored 15 points for the Cougars, the biggest being the 3-pointer at the end. Schmunk added 11 (but 13 according to the official stats). Lexi Newton had 10 rebounds.
In addition to Howard’s 12, freshman Reagan Heiken finished with 10 and junior Anneka Steen added nine. Sophomore Emily Taunisila had seven rebounds.
Silva was a little hard on himself as far as making the necessary adjustments to put together a more effective game plan.
“We did a quick turnaround and it’s not like we had a lot of time to prepare,” he said. “We finally made some adjustments in the third going into the fourth and were able to score a little bit but then we went on another one of those scoring droughts and that’s on me — I didn’t do a good enough job getting them ready.”
Silva had positive remarks about his team’s season.
“It’s a great season anytime you bring home a trophy,” Silva said. “It stinks to end on a couple of losses but there’s a lot to be happy about with where we’re at right now, with what we accomplished as a group. The girls played hard, I’m proud of them.”
With Tryon lost to graduation, the Warriors should again be a contender in 2024-25.
“I think it’s going to be fun,” Howard said. “I expect to see us here next year and hopefully we can give everybody a run for their money.”
