Cold Shooting, Foul Trouble Wrecks T-Wolves at Regionals

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Morton-White Pass was tied at the half and trailed by six heading into the fourth quarter but couldn’t quite catch up to Brewster in a 59-51 loss at Regionals on Saturday at Wenatchee High School.

The No. 5 Timberwolves went toe-to-toe with the No. 4 Bears and their star, 6-foot-6 guard Kelson Gebbers, who finished with a team-high 20 points.

MWP and Brewster were notched up at 27-all at the half before Brewster took a slight lead and held onto it for most of the second half. The T-Wolves never trailed by more than six, other than in the last second when the Bears capped the night with a buzzer-beating dunk to win by eight.

“We played them tough,” MWP coach Chad Cramer said. “It wasn’t our best outing, but we played good enough to win. Defensively, we were pretty solid.”

MWP held Brewster to 12 points below their season average of 71 points per game, but early foul trouble and a poor night of shooting ultimately doomed the T-Wolves.

Junior big-man Josh Salguero led all scorers with 24 points, despite picking up his third foul early in the second quarter, forcing him to sit the rest of the half. He then picked up his fourth foul early in the third quarter and had to come out again.

Even with the foul trouble and off-night shooting, the Timberwolves were still within striking distance down the stretch.

“We picked a bad game to have a poor night shooting, and that was really the difference in the game,” Cramer said. “We were just a few missed shots from winning it.

“I’m proud of how hard we played and we know with a win on Wednesday, we’re right back into the quarterfinals where we would’ve been had we won today. So our eyes are forward and we look forward to that challenge.”

Morton-White Pass, which is playing in its first state tournament since 2018, will take on No. 13 Northwest Christian (Colbert) in a loser-out game at 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday at the Spokane Arena.