Prep basketball: Prairie boys down Evergreen 65-57
The possibility of a three-way tie for third place in 3A Greater St. Helens League boys’ basketball got a little closer to reality on Wednesday night.
Bailey Kousonsavath and Bryson Jones both scored 19 points as the Prairie Falcons beat the Evergreen Plainsmen 65-57.
Prairie (5-15, 2-6 3A GSHL) is still bottom of the league, but Evergreen (7-13, 2-5) and Heritage (7-12, 2-5) are hovering a league just above game close to play.
With the way Prairie played Wednesday, the Falcons showed they may not be done yet.
“We recovered and played well defensively,” said Prairie coach Jimmy Tuominen. “We came up with a lot of loose balls and just ground.”
Tuominen credited Jones and Cam Newsome, who had 12 points, for hitting big 3-pointers in the second half and for the team shooting 8-10 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter as keys to the win.
Landon Rayner led Evergreen with 19 points and Tae Lee had 12 points.
Prairie has ended its regular season. So on Friday, it’s up to Kelso at Evergreen and Heritage as hosts of Mountain View to determine the playoff collection or which teams head for a tiebreak next week.
KELSO 76, HERITAGE 38 — The Hilanders stayed at the top of the 3A GSHL with Mountain View 6-1 with the win over visiting Heritage.
Kelso led 43-21 at halftime and forced 16 Heritage turnovers.
LA CENTER 76, COLUMBIA WHITE-SALMON 45 — A 25-9 in the second quarter for the Wildcats broke up the Trico League game as La Center went on to win.
The Wildcats are now in second place with Seton Catholic, both 6-2 with a league game remaining on Friday.
La Center, who play at Castle Rock on Friday, and Seton, who host Stevenson, split their two games against each other.
Boston Walker scored 12 of his team-high 16 points for La Center in the second quarter.
Colby Hylton added 13 points and Logan Rainey had 12.
Columbia (7-8, 2-7) was led by Spencer Karlson by 16 points.
girls basketball
HERITAGE 55, KELSO 53 – The Timberwolves put Kelso in a must-win situation with their 3A GSHL win on Friday.
Jaila Ellis and Mariah Bibens each scored 16 points as Heritage (11-8, 3-4) survived the visit to Kelso with a big fourth-quarter performance.
The Timberwolves went into the fourth round with a score of 39:28. Ellis, a freshman, scored 13 of her points in the fourth as Heritage took the lead with about 3:30 left in the game.
Kelso was up 10 with about a minute to go, bringing the deficit to two points with free throws, a 3-point from Bregan Ruhland and a 3-point deficit from Madison Lee in the last second.
Kelso (8-10, 3-5) now needs to win his last regular season game against Evergreen to reach the postseason.
McKenzie Milligan led Kelso with a career-high 17 points.
