Eagles fly past Hounds in district championship

In the third meeting between the two 2A Greater Spokane League boys basketball heavyweights this season, it was the West Valley Eagles that got the better of the Pullman Greyhounds in their district championship showdown Thursday in Spokane Valley.

The second-seeded Hounds and top-seeded Eagles had split their regular-season games, but West Valley won the title game 55-48.

“I felt like our communication wasn’t good enough, from me to our kids and from our kids to the other kids,” Pullman coach Craig Brantner said.

Brantner said that their slow start was a blow that they worked hard to try to nullify, as they were outscored in the first half 33-20. He said in their previous game against Clarkston in the semifinals, they executed everything that they ran, but Thursday it took a while to get going.

“I think maybe a little bit was nerves. And so we really never got to execute anything which caused us to attack the basket with the dribble, and then we’d turn it over trying to dribble through a crowd,” Brantner said.

Pullman (16-6) failed to execute offensively for most of the game. The Greyhounds shot 19-for-30 (63.3%) from inside and shot an abysmal 2-for-16 (12.5%) from the 3-point line, along with 4-for-6 (66.6%) from the free-throw line.

Just five players among the Greyhounds scored even a single-point. Small forward Daniel Kwon led the way with 15 points scored, as he went 6-for-9 from the field and 3-for-3 from the free-throw line. Brandon Brown was close behind scoring 10, and made the only 3-pointers the team would score.

On the other side of the court, seven out of the eight players the Eagles (19-3) played scored at least one point. Nathan Zettle scored the most with 17 points, shooting 3-for-8 from inside and 2-for-6 from beyond the arc. He also added five points via free throws.

Noah Willard, who scored 14, was the Eagles 3-point specialist, completing 4-of-9 from deep.

West Valley shot 11-for-29 (37.9%) from two-point range, 8-for-21 (38.1%) from the 3-point line and 9-for-16 (56.3%) from the free-throw line.

Pullman did make a run late in the game as it outscored West Valley 28-22 in the second half, including 16-10 in the fourth quarter. The Hounds were down only five points with 31.1 seconds left, but were unable to capitalize on a few opportunities.

Brantner said he was proud of his team for competing until the very end and the fact that it kept battling.

Pullman fell to 16-6 on the season and prepares to face off against Prosser in a district crossover game at 4 p.m. on Saturday in Prosser. The Mustangs (18-7) are No. 6 in the Washington Class 2A rankings by MaxPreps.com.

Brantner said that Prosser plays an aggressive and physical style and that the Hounds have played them regularly at State in recent years.

“It seems like we always run into them somewhere along the way,” Brantner said. “They have a lot of seniors on their team who’ve played a lot of basketball together, so we’re just gonna have to do a great job at defending and take away some of that stuff.”

The Greyhounds had issues with turnovers throughout the game and they did not shoot close to their normal field-goal percentage from the 3-point line. To beat their upcoming opponent in Prosser, Brantner said fundamental basketball will be extremely important.

“Our mindset has gotta be that we’re going to play one of our best games, and we’re going to have to do a lot of things correctly, especially fundamentally, just to have a chance to beat them,” Brantner said.

West Valley (19-3)

Nathan Zettle 5 5-6 17, Brandon Spunich 1 1-2 3, Noah Gaad-Lewis 0 1-4 1, Will Busse 1 0-4 2, Austin Clark 3 0-0 7, Brice Abbey 5 0-0 11, Kaya Seyhanli 0 0-0 0, Noah Willard 4 2-4 14, Trey Raiford 0 0-0 0, Robert Avery 0 0-0 0, Quinlan Hyatt 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 9-16 55.

Pullman (16-6)

Gavyn Dealy 4 1-2 9, Cade Rogers 4 0-0 8, Daniel Kwon 6 3-3 15, Vaughn Holstad 3 0-0 6, Daniel Liaina 0 0-0 0, Parker Lee 0 0-0 0, Adrian Hecker 0 0-0 0, Brandon Brown 4 0-2 10, Owen Brannan 0 0-0 0, Ryan Ha 0 0-0 0, Carson Forar 0 0-0 0, Evan Anderson 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 4-6, 48.

West Valley 19 14 12 10—55

Pullman 13 8 12 16—48

3-point goals — Willard 4, Zettle 2, Clark, Abbey, Brown 2.