Willapa Valley locked up its second-consecutive 1B District 4 championship with a 62-54 victory over Oakville on Saturday at Montesano High School.

The Vikings (18-5 overall) and Acorns (17-4) battled through a close, back-and-forth contest throughout much of the game, with Willapa Valley holding a 16-12 lead at the end of the first quarter and a slim 28-26 advantage at halftime.

Oakville took a two-point lead early in the third quarter after a few empty Vikings possessions, but Willapa Valley responded to lead by a basket entering the final quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Willapa Valley’s defensive strategy proved to be key as the Vikings took the final quarter 17-11 to win the district title.

“We switched defenses a lot,” said Willapa Valley head coach Jay Pearson, who started the game in a man-to-man defense. “We used a Box-and-1, Triangle-2 and they didn’t have an answer for that. We really took them out of their game.”

PHOTO BY LARRY BALE Willapa Valley senior Riley Pearson, left, puts up a jump shot during the Vikings’ 62-54 win over Oakville in the 1B District 4 Championship on Saturday at Montesano High School.

Standout Oakville guard Eddie Klatush was held to eight points while being defended by Valley senior Kolten Fluke, who scored a game-high 20 points on 8-of-16 shooting and had four steals.

“I’ve been waiting for Kolten Fluke to play like he did last year,” Pearson said. “He had the game of his season.”

Offensively, Pearson said dealing with the Oakville press defense was another key to his team’s victory.

“We knew going in they used a hard 2-2-1 press and we’ve been practicing press break all the time,” he said. “We broke it so many times in the first half that they had to get out of it.”

In addition to Fluke, senior guard Riley Pearson (15 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists), sophomore Nathan Fluke (11 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) and senior forward Wil Clements (10 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) also scored in double figures for Willapa Valley.

Senior Derek Fluke led Willapa Valley with 14 rebounds while senior Garrett Keeton had six points, seven rebounds and eight assists for the Vikings.

Willapa Valley shot 42% from the floor on 21-of-57 shooting and went 9-of-13 from the free-throw line.

PHOTO BY LARRY BALE The Willapa Valley Vikings (pictured) defeated Oakville 62-54 to win the 1B District 4 Championship on Saturday at Montesano High School.

Coach Pearson said that winning back-to-back district titles started long before this current group of Vikings were in high school.

“This doesn’t just happen in four years,” he said. “This has been a 12-year process with youth basketball and playing a lot of games, making it fun and making kids want to play basketball. That’s your ticket.”

Willapa Valley received a No. 4 seed and will face No. 5 Moses Lake Christian in a 1B State Tournament second-round game at noon on Saturday at Tumwater High School.

Oakville 12 14 17 11 – 54

Willapa Valley 16 12 17 17 – 62

Scoring: Oakville – Boyd 16, Klatush 8, Rodas 8, Charles-Cayenne 8, Baker 8, Price 6. Willapa Valley – K. Fluke 20, Pearson 15, N. Fluke 11, Clements 10, Keeton 6.

Chief Leschi 78, Raymond 57

Playing its third game in four days, Raymond’s season ended in a 78-57 loss to Chief Leschi in a 2B District 4 elimination game on Saturday at W.F. West High School.

The Seagulls (12-13) trailed 23-10 after one quarter, but rallied to cut the Warriors’ lead to 35-29 at the half.

Chief Leschi (20-4) made a run from midway through the third quarter to the middle of the fourth to extend its lead to 15.

”Unfortunately, we just ran out of gas,” Raymond head coach Mike Tully said. “Chief Leschi is a very good team and we just made too many mistakes and missed too many shots to give ourselves a chance.”

Raymond was led by senior guard Morgan Anderson, who finished his stellar prep career with 24 points, 11 rebounds and two assists.

With a short jump shot in the second quarter, Anderson topped 1,000 points for his career and finished with a total of 1,016 points to place 10th all time in Raymond school history.

Skyler Hutson also scored in double figures with 12 points for Raymond, which missed a chance at the district’s fifth and final state-tournament slot with the loss.

“I’m really proud of our kids,” Tully said. “I don’t think anyone thought that we would make it this far into the playoffs, but these guys came together at the right time and really showed what they were capable of.”

Raymond 10 19 12 16 – 57

Chief Leschi 23 12 19 22 – 78

Scoring: Raymond – Anderson 24, Hutson 12, Gunderson 8, Snodgrass 5, Quintana 4, Yearout 4.

Chief Leschi – Brown 24, James 13, J. Dillon 8, T. Dillon 8, Lewis 7, Earl 6, Oyos 2.

GIRLS PREP BASKETBALL

Mossyrock 63, Willapa Valley 22

Nothing seemingly went right for Willapa Valley in a 63-22 loss to Mossyrock in the 1B District 4 championship game on Saturday in Montesano.

Valley (17-7) trailed 14-9 after one quarter and went scoreless in the second to trail 30-9 at halftime to Mossyrock (19-3).

Willapa Valley was outscored 33-13 in the second half and failed to score for over 16 minutes of game time.

“You don’t score for 16 minutes, that’s half the game right there and you are losing,” Willapa Valley head coach John Peterson said. “My girls battled like crazy to get into this game and I thought we were a little bit scared. We haven’t been in a game like that before. … We didn’t play well at all.”

Willapa Valley senior Grace Huber scored 10 points to lead Willapa Valley, which shot 20% on 7-of-35 shooting while committing 23 turnovers.

“We didn’t have to win this game to get where we are going,” Peterson said. “We’re playing with house money here. … We went over to the toilet and flushed it.”

Valley enters the state tournament as the No. 12 seed and will face No. 13 Orcas Island at 2 p.m. on Saturday in Tumwater.

Willapa Valley 9 0 8 5 – 22

Mossyrock 14 16 11 22 – 63

Scoring: Willapa Valley – Huber 10, Patrick 5, Quezada 4, Matlock 2, Wilson 1. Mossyrock – C. Marshall 19. P. Torrey 18, Brooks 13, M. Torrey 7, Schwartz 3, Lovan 2, R. Marshall 1.

Raymond 49, Toutle Lake 33

Raymond earned a spot in the 2B State Tournament with a 49-33 win over Toutle Lake on Saturday at W.F. West High School.

The Seagulls (19-6) adjusted to a Ducks team that tried to take away much of what Raymond likes to do on offense, specifically get the ball into the hands of sophomore standout guard Karsyn Freeman.

While Toutle Lake (15-10) was able to limit Freeman to six points, other Seagulls stepped up when needed.

Junior guard Kyndal Koski scored a game-high 25 points and Raymond scored 17 field goals off 13 assists in the victory, which punched the Gulls’ ticket to state postseason play.

“For an early morning game, I was really pleased with our early game focus,” Raymond head coach Jason Koski said. “Toutle took away a lot of the things we like to do, so credit to them, but like good teams will do, someone else will step up and Kyndal certainly did that for us.”

Raymond outrebounded Toutle Lake 37-24 and had 13 steals to just five turnovers as a team.

“Our rebounding was phenomenal and I think winning the 50-50 battle was huge,” Coach Koski said. “We were able to take care of the ball and limit our turnovers and defensively we forced them into quite a few.”

Raymond earned a No. 12 seed and will face No. 13 Davenport in a 2B State Tournament loser-out, opening-round game scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at W.F. West High School.

Raymond 18 11 8 12 – 49

Toutle Lake 12 9 3 9 – 33

Scoring: Raymond – Kyndal Koski 25, Williams 8, Freeman 6, Kassie Koski 4, Kongbouakhay 4.

Toutle Lake – L. Dean 12, K. Dean 7, P. Thayer 6, Smith 4, Crane 2, Cooper 1, Fallz 1.