Loggers bow out of 2A state tournament

Published 1:59 am Friday, March 7, 2025

The Knappa girls basketball team rallied but couldn’t hold onto a fourth-quarter lead as the team fell, 44-39, to Weston-McEwen in Thursday’s quarterfinal round of the 2A state championship in Pendleton.

Forced into Friday’s consolation bracket, and playing just over 12 hours after Thursday’s game ended, the Loggers lost, 45-34, to Central Linn. The loss eliminated Knappa from the state tournament.

The Thursday game against Weston-McEwen game was a defensive battle from the start: At halftime, the score was 13-13 and the teams were tied at 23 going into the fourth quarter. The teams combined for 28% shooting, along with 39 fouls and 36 turnovers.

Despite trailing for most of the game, the Loggers battled to a four-point lead with about seven minutes left in the game. But turnovers and the inability to corral key rebounds (the TigerScots pulled down 18 offensive rebounds) allowed Weston-McEwen, the No. 2 seed, to rally for the victory.

The seventh-seeded Loggers didn’t help their cause with a 2-for-8 performance from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter and finished 4-for-17 from the charity stripe for the game.

After being held scoreless in the first half, Weston-McEwen guard Kelsey Graham scored 16 points after the break to lead her team to victory. Mylie Lempea led the Loggers with 11 points.

“I thought the girls played emotionally steady and we put ourselves in position to win, but things just didn’t go our way down the stretch,” said Loggers head coach Tracie Brockey. “Even though we were the lower seed, we didn’t feel like it. … This was a team we could have beaten and we almost did.”

For the Loggers, freshman Lucy Oien had 10 points and six rebounds in her first state tournament appearance. Beth Larsen had 10 rebounds and two blocks, while Kate Maher had nine rebounds and four blocks in 16 minutes of play.

“All three of them did what we asked of them tonight,” Brockey said.

In Friday’s game against Central Linn, the Loggers led 10-2 after the first quarter, but a disastrous second quarter allowed the Cobras to take a 17-13 lead into halftime, and the Cobras never trailed after that. 

Oien led the Loggers with 14 points. Addie Wolff scored 15 for the Cobras. 

Knappa, the champion of the Northwest League, finished its season with a 21-7 record. This was the second straight year the Loggers reached the state tournament; the team finished third last year.