Wilsonville Wildcats

Churchill boys fall to longtime nemesis in

5A state tournament Zack Palmer; Register-Guard

CORVALLIS – Churchill ran into an old nemesis in the Class 5A boys basketball semifinals, and the result was the same as always.

Third-ranked Wilsonville buried the Lancers’ state title hopes with a 58-41 victory Friday at Gill Coliseum, relegating No. 2 Churchill to the third-place game against Redmond.

“Games like this at the state tournament, you have to have poise,” Churchill coach Kelly Bokn said. “You’ve got to be willing to have more patience. We settled for shooting really tough shots. They kind of forced us to make a few extra passes to get a teammate open. We just didn’t have good shot selection, so consequently we didn’t shoot the ball well.

“Credit to (Wilsonville). They’re a really good ball club. It is what it is. We’ve got to bounce back and try to play Redmond tomorrow.”

It was a familiar outcome for Churchill (22-6), which lost to Wilsonville in the 5A state title game in both 2017 and 2019, plus a semifinal loss in 2018.

The Lancers fell behind early but rallied to lead for much of the first half before Wilsonville’s Maxim Wu made an acrobatic tip-in at the buzzer to give the Wildcats a 21-20 halftime lead. Churchill was still within five points near the end of the third quarter, but this time it was Enzo Chimienti who beat the buzzer with a jump shot to push Wilsonville’s lead to 34-27.

After that, Churchill was forced to gamble in an effort to recover and Wilsonville (26-2) scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach. The Lancers cut the lead to nine points on Bugsy Jensen’s four-point play with 4:18 remaining and Samaje Morgan got Churchill within 45-36 with a steal and coast-to-coast layup with 3:30 left.

“We had to go out and be aggressive and try to get out in the passing lanes and foul,” Bokn said. “That was really a 10-point game but then we had to gamble. They’re too poised and too good with the ball to allow us to get back in it.”

Wilsonville leaned on its strength inside with 6-foot-10 center Logan Thebiay and 6-7 post Tristan Davis. Thebiay had nine points and 18 rebounds and Davis contributed 14 points. Wu added 15 points for the Wildcats and Chimienti scored 13.

“Wilsonville, to their credit, they’re big, they’re strong and we just were impatient,” Bokn said. “They were jamming it down our throats at the block and really trying to get mid-range jumpers and layups. They’re just going to grind you like hamburger in a meat grinder.”

Churchill got 13 points from Ty Weiskind and 10 from Morgan, but overall the Lancers shot just 16- of-41 (39%) from the floor and 5-of-13 from 3-point range.

Wilsonville will face No. 3 Silverton (23-5) in the 5A championship game Saturday at 3:15 p.m., while Churchill will face No. 1 Redmond (21-6) in the third-place game at 1:30 p.m.