The Philomath High School boys basketball team fell into a first-half hole and could not climb back out in what ended up as a 55-43 loss to Nome-Beltz in Sunday night’s championship game of the Clarke Cochrane Christmas Classic in Ketchikan, Alaska.
The Nanooks, the defending state champions in Alaska’s 3A classification, shot out to a 15-5 lead in the first quarter. Senior Finn Gregg hit the first two of his four 3-pointers on the evening and was a consistent scoring threat throughout the game, finishing with 26 points in all.
Philomath, meanwhile, had limited scoring opportunities with just nine shot attempts in the first quarter. Nearly half of those were from beyond the 3-point arc and the Warriors were not seeing any success at 0 for 4 in the first quarter and 0 for 14 for the game.
In the second half, Philomath played Nome-Beltz evenly on the scoreboard but could not put a dent in the deficit to lose by 12. Junior Josiah Peters scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, including eight in the fourth quarter alone. For the game, he made 7 of 8 shots.
Senior Logan Matthews contributed eight points and senior Grant Niemann came off the bench to score seven.
Seniors Caleb Russell and Zack Powers were named to the all-tournament team.
Philomath (4-7) is scheduled to host Astoria at 5:30 p.m. Friday.
