Tigercats, Vikings Earn 4th Matchup

One doesn’t use the term barn-burner in this part of the state without getting someone’s dander up.

But the truth is, a barn-burner will take place Friday night at 7:30 when LaCrosse-Washtucna faces Garfield-Palouse in the Southeast B championship at Washington State University’s Friel Court.

It’ll be the fourth time this season the two will face each other.

Tuesday afternoon, the Tigercats beat Waitsburg, 44-41.

Later in the night, the Gar-Pal Vikings won 54-48 over Pomeroy.

In loser-out contests, St. John-Endicott defeated Touchet, 65-52, and DeSales beat Rosalia, 56-47. The Indians of Touchet finish the season with a record of 10-12; the Spartans of Rosalia finish at 12-13.

At Friel Court today at 1:30 p.m., Pomeroy (18-3) will face St. John-Endicott (8-16). At 7:30 p.m., Waitsburg (13-8) will square off against DeSales (13-10). The winner of those games will play each other on Friday at 1:30 a.m.

The winner of that game will then go on to play the LaCrosse-Washtucna/Garfield-Palouse loser on Saturday night at 8:30 to determine the No. 2 seed to the state playoffs.

Garfield-Palouse 54, Pomeroy 48

Garfield Palouse (19-5) hit 7 of 8 free throws in the last 1:48 of the game to defeat a Pomeroy team that actually led for most of the game.

The Vikings’ Sean Thurston was 4 for 4 from the free-throw line and teammate Jeremy Fox was 3 for 4 as Gar-Pal kept Pomeroy at bay.

“He (Thurston) has really worked hard on his free throws,” Vikings coach Tim Coles said. “For most of the season, his release point on his shot was just behind his head.

“We straightened it out and it seems like he hasn’t missed much since.”

Thurston finished with a game-high 13 points, and teammates B.J. Hill and Fox added 11 each.

Ironically, what proved to be a back-breaker for Pomeroy was poor free-throw shooting. The Pirates were just 6 of 16 from the line.

They also handed over 17 turnovers.

Adam McCabe led Pomeroy with 12 points while Seth Edvalson followed with 10.

Pomeroy 13 14 9 12 - 48

Garfield-Palouse 10 11 16 17 - 54

POMEROY A.McCabe 12, Young 2, Gwinn 9, McKeirnan 0, Cox 8, Klaveano 0, Kimble 2, Edvalson 10, E.McCabe 2, Fruh 3.

GARFIELD-PALOUSE Hill 11, Bischoff 2, Coles 8, Fox 11, Gearhart 0, Miller 4, Hegg 2, Thurston 13, Sheffler 3.

LaCrosse-Wash. 44, Waitsburg 41

First-year Tigercats (18-6) coach Andy Stinson had the motivational line of the day for his team.

LaCrosse-Washtucna started out tentative against the Cardinals. With the score tied 17-17 in the second quarter, an exasperated Stinson finally blurted out: “Be strong with the ball. You’re shooting like a bunch of weenies!” That’s enough to get anyone fired up.

The Tigercats responded. However, Waitsburg never let them get away. LaCrosse-Washtucna led 44-41 with 23.6 seconds to play when Tigercat Clint Ledbetter missed the front end of a one-and-one situation.

Waitsburg rebounded and set up a final play, but Chris Pearson’s two 3-point attempts never came close.

“My biggest concern today was our offense,” Stinson said. “In the second half, we just went to more five-man motion to get everybody a little bit more involved.

“We were more patient in the second half and I think that helped.”

Last week, LaCrosse-Washtucna defeated Garfield-Palosue. It was the first time in three attempts this year that the Tigercats had beaten the Vikings.

Still, Stinson is waiting for the spark to return to a team that he feels has lost a little pep in the last week.

“When it’s clicking, we look great,” he said. “We can be exciting, but we haven’t seen a lot of that lately. I bet it will be there Saturday.”

On Tuesday, Jermey Daniel led LaCrosse-Washtucna with 12 points while Eric Wyatt led Waitsburg with 13.

LaCrosse-Wash. 10 11 10 13 - 44

Waitsburg 7 14 9 11 - 41

LaCROSSE-WASHTUCNA Nealey 8, Ledbetter 10, Rouleau 2, Daniel 12, Kinch 2, Roberts 4, J.Whitman 6.

WAITSBURG Harris 0, Largent 5, Scott 3, Riggs 7, Pesina 0, Pearson 2, Wyatt 13, Erikson 5, Banks 6, Abbey 0.

St.John-End. 65, Touchet

Nick Strader scored 14 first-half points and Conor Kleweno made 9 of 10 free throws as the Eagles (8-16) eliminated the Indians (10-12).

SJE shot 46 free throws - and hit just 27 - as four Touchet players fouled out. Touchet’s Mike Adams made three 3-pointers in the second quarter and finished with 21 points.

Touchet 11 17 8 16 - 52

SJE 17 14 16 18 - 65

TOUCHET Clarke 2, Renwick 0, Ewing 0, Adams 21, Trejo 4, Nolan 0, Espinoza 0, Hegdal 4, Bussell 8, Ford 4, Miller 1, Gosney 8.

ST. JOHN-ENDICOTT Kleweno 9, Colyar 8, Repp 0, Bafus 4, Strader 20, Kolb 0, Smith 0, Gering 11, Jordan 0, Hergert 13, Stolmeier 0, Phillips 0.

DeSales 56, Rosalia 47

Joe Levens scored 14 fourth-quarter points and Brian Lindgren hit five 3-pointers and scored 23 as the Irish (13-10) rallied to eliminate the Spartans (12-13).

For Rosalia, Ben Scheele scored 21 and Brian Maley scored 12 of the Spartans’ 14 fourth-quarter points.

Rosalia 13 12 8 14 - 47

DeSales 11 8 11 26 - 56

ROSALIA Bernard 0, VanGrimbergen 2, Maley 17, Naught 4, Scheele 21, Goyke 0, Finley 3, Slemp 0, Blank 0, Botham 0.

DeSALES - Lindgren 23, Huether 6, Levens 18, Kezele 0, Wolfram 0, Heinzman 3, Casey 0, Stanley 0, Zea 6, Baffney 0, Michels 0, Moramarco 0.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Today’s SEB games Boys G9-Pomeroy (18-3) vs. St. JohnEndicott (8-16) (loser out), 1:30 p.m. G10-Waitsburg (13-8) vs. DeSales (13-10) (loser out), 7:30 p.m. Girls G9-Pomeroy (16-5) vs. Asotin (15-7) (loser out), noon G10-DeSales (14-7) vs. Garfield-Palouse (12-13) (loser out), 6 p.m.