FOREST GROVE — It probably wasn’t a surprise that the Philomath-Stayton state championship game match-up Saturday night came down to the team that played the best defense.
The Stayton Eagles played the best defense.
Stayton made on-court life miserable for Philomath’s offense and the No. 2-seeded Eagles did more than enough at the opposite end, pulling away in the second half for a 47-36 victory over the top-ranked Warriors in the final of the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union 4A girls basketball tournament at Forest Grove High School.
The Eagles had a 22-19 lead at the end of a hard-fought first half and then just picked away. The lead grew to 37-30 after three quarters and then Breeci Hampton drilled a three-pointer to make it 42-30 with 3:32 to play in the game.
Stayton came up with another six defensive stops on eight possessions in three minutes as the Eagles (27-1) clinched their third state championship and first since 2007.
“Every basket was so hard to come by for both teams,” Stayton coach Tal Wold said. “I don’t know how all of a sudden we separated. Like I don’t know where it happened, but I’m grateful it did. I looked up at one point and I was like, ‘Hey, we’re were up 10.’ I don’t know how we got there, but …
“The girls played so hard and physical. It was an unbelievable game. Kind of what I expected.”
Here were two Oregon West Conference rivals who had split their regular-season series in a pair of one-point games — Philomath winning 27-26 at home on Jan. 31 and Stayton winning 40-39 at home on Feb. 21. And both went into Saturday’s final prepared for another nail-biter.
The difference this time was Stayton's defense. More specifically, the Eagles’ interior defense anchored by Haley Butenschoen, Kenzi Hollenbeck, Kathryn Samek and Korbyn Schmidt and a group that limited Philomath to six points in the paint.
Yes, six points. In the paint. The place where the Warriors went again and again and again and again in Thursday’s 53-35 quarterfinal win over Crook County and Friday’s 43-37 semifinal win over Cascade.
On Saturday, those shots weren’t there.
“Stayton is just so physical down low,” Philomath coach Ben Silva said. “They have three or four girls that guard in the paint, where a lot of teams at our level don’t have that, so we’re able to get an advantage inside.
“Tonight, we struggled to do that, which is where we’re at our best.”
Stayton takes a lot of pride in playing defense. The Eagles had held 21 of their first 25 opponents to fewer than 30 points and reached the quarterfinals having held opponents to a state-best 25.5 points a game.
“That’s what we worked on all season — to be the best defensive team in the state,” said Hollenbeck, Stayton’s 5-foot-9 senior guard/forward. “That’s how it’s always been. Our offense will come. We’re not worried about that. We want to hang our hats on our defense.
“Tonight, we did really well sticking together, being there for each other, whether it was help side, deflections — the little things that sometimes go unnoticed that I think are the biggest things for us.
“That kind of defense just creates momentum for us and builds excitement. When you get a stop on defense, that just fuels the fire for our offense.”
Wold pointed to Stayton’s 31-29 edge in rebounds as another key.
“We knew we had to rebound with them,” Wold said. “They just kill so many people on the boards with their length and their physicality. The first two times we played them, they had 36 more possessions than us. Some of that’s turnovers, but most of it’s on the boards, so that was big.
“We can score, but … in games like this, you have to defend and you have to rebound. And we were lucky enough to get a lot of that done.”
Philomath had a 16-15 lead with just under two minutes to play in the second quarter, but a 7-3 Stayton run in the closing 1:27 of the half gave the Eagles a 22-19 advantage at the break.
In the second half, Stayton gradually pulled away behind a string of big plays.
Samek stole the ball and scored on an uncontested layup to make it 24-19.
Samek scored inside, got fouled, and completed the three-point play to make it 31-25.
Butenschoen grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on the putback to make it 37-28.
And, finally, Hampton buried the three-pointer that made it 42-30 and set off the “Loud Environment” warnings on everybody’s smart watches.
“It’s kind of a blur right now,” Silva said. “I think everyone was a little anxious to start the game, kind of high energy, and a little sloppy to start, as well. But both teams are just so physical.
“I tip my cap to Stayton. They hit some big shots. We struggled a little bit executing offensively and I thhink that’s probably the biggest difference in the game, but sometimes you lose to a good team.”
Samek, Stayton’s 6-1 sophomore, led all scorers with 18 points, going 5 for 9 from the field and 8 for 9 at the free-throw line. Hampton added seven points and Hollenbeck had six points and a game-high 10 rebounds.
“It’s amazing,” Samek said. “I don’t know what else to say. It’s like the biggest thing ever and we’ve been working toward this for forever. I’m so excited. Our whole team is excited. We did it for each other and for our town.
“It was really tough. Philomath is really long and they made it hard for us in the paint. But we worked together and found a way to do it.”
Reagan Heiken led Philomath with 14 points and was the only player to score in double figures for the Warriors. Shaylee May had six points, and Aspen Russell and Anneka Steen added five points each.
“Stayton hit some shots,” Silva said. “They had some kids who showed up and hit some shots. And we did as well. We just didn’t hit quite as many as them.”
The all-tournemant first team included Stayton’s Hampton and Samek, Stayton’s Heiken, Cascade’s Rozalyn Schmunk, and Henley’s Makayla Schroeder. Hampton and Heiken were both unanimous selections.
In Saturday’s other games:
No. 11 Baker 53, No. 5 Cascade 35: When Emilia Myers comes off the Baker bench, she has the green light to shoot from three-point range.
The senior guard had already connected three times from long range when she hit a another, sparking a 12-0 run at the start of the fourth quarter that helped lift the Bulldogs over the Cougars in Saturday’s third-place game.
Baker’s Gracie Spike scored a team-high 14 points, Myer added 13 points, and Molly Rasmussen had seven points and five rebounds to help the Bulldogs (19-10) rebound from Friday’s 59-35 semifinal loss to Stayton.
“Our girls played really well today,” Baker coach Jason Ramos said. “Just getting here wasn’t enough. We had high hopes and that third-place game meant a lot to these girls and they played really hard.”
The Bulldogs carried a 31-30 lead into the fourth quarter when Myer rebounded her own miss from long range and buried the next one. That was followed by a Mary Schwartz jumper, a Spike three-pointer, a Rasmussen lay-up, and a Spike jumper that made it 43-30 with five minutes remaining.
The lead stayed at double digits the rest of the way.
“We just had an amazing fourth quarter,” Ramos said. “We held Cascade to five points and knocked down a bunch of baskets and that was the difference.
“We talked about what our expectations were at the beginning of the season, and getting to the tournament was a legitimate goal for us. So, the girls played really well down the stretch and we were playing our best basketball this time, which is what you always hope for, and they just came down and had an amazing tournament.”
Cascade’s Rozalyn Schmunk finished 16 points and 10 rebounds, while the Cougars’ other four starters had a combined eight points on 1-for-20 shooting from the field and 6-for-10 shooting from the free-throw line.
No. 3 Henley 63, No. 4 La Grande 48: Makayla Schroeder had 18 points and 15 rebounds — both game highs — and Ann Harper added 17 points as the overwhelmed the Tigers to claim the fourth-place trophy in Saturday’s 9 a.m. consolation final.
The Hornets of Klamath Falls jumped out to a 26-8 lead at the end of the first quarter and then maintained at least a 15-point advantage until the final two minutes of the game.
Henley’s Prestyn Schade finished with 10 points, six rebounds, and four assists for the Hornets, who shot 44.6 percent (25 for 56) from the field and enjoyed a 42-16 advantage in points in the paint.
La Grande’s Rowan Evans had a team-high 11 points for the Tigers, who got another nine points and six rebounds from Carlee Strand.
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