ALBANY — Through the first five games, the Philomath High boys basketball team’s efforts to rebuild from last season’s heavy roster losses have been a challenge with a schedule that has included three Class 5A opponents sporting a combined record of 7-2.
To elevate the challenge to an even higher level, all three of the games were on the road — a Dec. 5 season-opening loss at Crescent Valley (55-33) and just this week alone, setbacks at West Albany (61-69) and South Albany (55-38).
Gallery: PHS boys basketball at South Albany (Dec. 17, 2024)
A collection of photos from Philomath High’s boys basketball game at South Albany on Tuesday.
Now in his 22nd year as head coach with nearly 400 wins and two state titles, Blake Ecker knows what needs to happen for his team to turn the corner and start putting together victories — better shooting, fewer turnovers and execution on defense. In Tuesday night’s loss to the RedHawks, it was those three facets of the game that hurt in what ended up as a 17-point loss.
“Turnovers are killing us,” Ecker said, a number that certainly was more than 20 for the game. “We can’t keep turning it over to where we don’t even get an opportunity to shoot it. That’s what killed us.”
South Albany (3-1) capitalized on many of those turnovers by scoring points on the other end. Philomath cleaned up its game after halftime and went on an 8-1 run stretch to start making things interesting. The Warriors were down 38-26 at the midway point of the quarter and there was a whole lot of game remaining.
“I felt like at times we had some good transition baskets and moved the ball pretty well,” Ecker said. “In the third quarter, we had cut it 12 points … it was like, just take it one bucket at a time, get a stop and score on the other end.”
Senior Grant Niemann got the scoring run started with a basket about 90 seconds into the half. After the RedHawks hit a free throw, Niemann buried a 3-pointer and then senior Zack Powers made a basket, drew a foul and converted on the free throw.
But South Albany finished the quarter on a 6-0 run and the Warriors were not able to recover.
“We just could not do it,” Ecker said. “We would have another turnover and they would capitalize on it.”
Philomath fell into a 6-0 hole after the opening tipoff but went on a 9-0 run to take the lead. The Warriors went up 7-6 lead after back-to-back 3-pointers by junior Josiah Peters and senior Caleb Russell. Senior Logan Matthews later hit a jumper for a 9-6 lead.
South Albany regained the lead, however, with the go-ahead basket coming on an easy layup by junior LJ Kyle with 2 seconds left after he stole the ball from a Philomath player under the hoop.
Philomath went up 11-10 early in the second quarter on a hoop by Powers but the RedHawks came right back with senior guard Colin Cordle scoring two of his game-high 22 points and South Albany never trailed the rest of the way.
The Warriors struggled on offense with unforced turnovers and the RedHawks took advantage to go on a 21-5 run for a 17-point lead at halftime.
PHS also missed scoring opportunities at the free-throw line, making just 4 of 13 attempts, which comes out to 30.8%.
Said Ecker, “Any of those opportunities we need to capitalize on and take advantage of.”
The RedHawks were also finding success against the Philomath defense.
“Defensively, we didn’t play well tonight, especially in our man-to-man,” Ecker said. “They would get around us and we had no backside help.”
Ecker said he would like to see improved team leadership among the upperclassmen on the roster and believes the team could see better days ahead with hard work in practice.
In addition to Cordle’s 22, South Albany got 11 points from Kyle. Josiah Peters led the Warriors with 10 points.
Philomath (1-4) will now turn its attention to back-to-back tournaments. This week, the Warriors will participate in the Les Schwab South Coast Holiday Tournament in Coos Bay, an event hosted by Marshfield High School. Then during the final week of the month, Philomath will head north to the Clarke Cochran Christmas Classic at Ketchikan, Alaska.
The Warriors will play at 4 p.m. Thursday in Marshfield High’s main gym against North Bend, a school out of the Sky-Em League that comes into the contest with a 2-4 record. If Philomath can post a win, the next opponent would be either Marshfield or North Marion in the semifinals on Friday night at 8:30. The tournament’s championship game is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. Saturday. If the Warriors lose their first game, the team would play at 10:15 a.m. Friday and then at either 8:30 or 10:45 a.m. Saturday.
