ROCHESTER — In the moments before halftime on Wednesday in Rochester, things got chippy between Onalaska and Ilwaco. A hard foul led to some shoving and a technical foul, and both teams entered the locker room fired up.
During the break, the Loggers recomposed themselves and battled back to tie the game entering the fourth. They weren’t able to do enough to knock off the top-seeded Fishermen, though, ultimately falling 67-61 in a 2B District 4 Quarterfinal.
“For them to come out and regain their composure was great,” Onalaska coach Fred Sturza said. “We fought, and we just ran out of steam against a good team.”
The Fishermen went to work driving inside early, and that pressure was unrelenting in the second half. In the first half, they were able to generate easy layups in transition, but even as Onalaska was able to get them in the half-court in the second half, they were still able to attack the rim and generate chances consistently.
Dylan Pelas and Haddox Hazen had the most success, combining for 45 points.
“We gave up too much baseline,” Sturza said. “I don’t know if it was fatigue, but we just kept allowing that baseline drive. It was either an and-one, a bucket, or it allowed a backside rebound for a putback. That’s the difference in the game.”
After scoring just 24 points in the first half, the Onalaska offense caught fire in the third.
Noland Brady, Ethan Thayer, and Maddox McKinley hit three shots each from the field, Austin Sutza added a three, and Brodey Triana hit a layup of his own. A few free throws put Onalaska at 26 for the quarter alone, and after trailing 30-18 late in the first half, the Loggers had tied it up at 50.
“We beat them by being composed, playing defense and executing on offense,” Fred Sturza said. “They calmed down, and the guys that were the most fired up gave us good minutes at the end.”
Some of those good minutes ended up costing the Loggers down the stretch.
Fred Sturza said that the Loggers usually run a seven- or eight-player rotation, but with the way the game played out, he stuck mostly with six players. That resulted in some exhaustion late, which led to some costly turnovers in the game’s most crucial moments.
“You could definitely tell the conditioning kind of got us at the end,” Fred Sturza said.
Thayer finished with a double-double, scoring 19 points and bringing down 14 rebounds of Onalaska’s 34 rebounds.
“He keeps us in the game with defense, but more importantly his rebounding,” Fred Sturza said.
“He battles. We gotta do a better job helping him out … He kept fighting, and that’s why I love having him on the team.”
Brady finished with 16 points, six rebounds, five assists, and three steals, and Maddox McKinley scored 14 points. Austin Sturza finished with eight, Haze Hamrick tallied two, and Triana finished with two to go along with five rebounds, three steals, and a pair of assists.
With the loss, the Loggers (11-11) fall to the elimination bracket, where they’ll need to rattle off three straight wins to claim their first state berth since 2020.
Though they missed out on state last year, they took a similar path. Last winter, the Loggers won their first-round matchup, lost in the quarters, then won two elimination games before falling to Rainier in their winner-to-state matchup.
This time around, Onalaska will face North Beach in Centralia on Friday in their first elimination game.
“It’ll be tough getting everyone back, ready to go, and engaged for another tough one,” Fred Sturza said. “It’s a younger group compared to last year, but it’s a group that can do it.”
