State 1B boys: Wellpinit continues title defense with 70-51 win over Columbia Adventist Academy
The Wellpinit boys basketball team isn’t the same group that captured the State 1B championship last year.
Just one starter returned, and the team graduated all of its size. But Wellpinit isn’t playing for anything less than a repeat.
It took Wellpinit three quarters, but it finally got rolling, cruising past Columbia Adventist 70-51 Thursday at the Arena.
Wellpinit (22-2) meets Neah Bay (19-5) in the semifinals Friday at 5:30 p.m.
With just two players as tall as 6-foot-2, Wellpinit attempts to use quickness to make up for its lack of size.
What made the difference Thursday was the run-and-gun-minded team dug its heels in and played solid defense in the fourth quarter.
Columbia Adventist (18-9) took a 40-39 lead midway through the third quarter. Grant Denison III, Wellpinit’s lone returning starter, hit a 3-pointer that put Wellpinit in front to stay at 42-40 with 2:29 left in the quarter.
Wellpinit led 50-46 going into the fourth quarter. That’s when it used a 20-0 run to blow open the game.
“Going into the fourth quarter, I had a couple of starters in foul trouble, and not only that, they weren’t playing up to par on defense,” Wellpinit coach Bill Flett Sr. said. “They were bringing the defense and effort, and I looked at my assistant coach and said, ‘We’re going to stick with this group because they’re bringing the energy.’ ”
Columbia Adventist didn’t score until the 2:24 mark, but by then it was too late.
Denison put down the exclamation point when he cut to the basket and took a nice pass from Franky Wynne to give Wellpinit a 70-48 lead with 1:50 to go.
“When they play together as one on defense, they feed off of it,” Flett said. “Our defense brings our offense. Granted, our shots weren’t falling for a while, but once we dialed in on defense, we were OK. I’ve got to give it up to Columbia. They came out to play.”
Denison finished with a game-high 31 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field, 3 of 6 from 3-point range. He also had seven rebounds.
Wynne added 17 points and seven rebounds.
Denison knew Wellpinit would gather itself.
“I think it was finally settling in under the big lights (of the Arena) and starting to play our game,” Denison said. “We kind of did that a couple times this season, but we always ended up snapping out of it and start playing our game to our level.”
Flett expects an uptempo game with Neah Bay.
“We just got done talking to them in the locker room about it,” Flett said. “I told them this game is behind us. We got through today, let’s wash it. We won. Now we need to put it behind us and get ready for Neah Bay. Neah Bay likes to run, too, so it might be a barnburner.”
Tristan White led Columbia Adventist with 16 points and six rebounds.