CHEHALIS — A second-half comeback earned the Neah Bay boys basketball team a spot in the Class 1B state tournament after a 56-47 win against Riverside Christian in the regional round of the Class 1B state playoffs at W.F. West High School.
Saturday night’s win sealed the seventh consecutive state tournament appearance and 12th state trip in the past 13 seasons for the Red Devils (19-3).
Neah Bay will open state with a quarterfinal matchup against nonleague rival Taholah (15-9) at Spokane Arena at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
The Red Devils tamed the Chitwins 88-65 in early December.
Sunday’s state draw certainly seems to favor Neah Bay.
“I don’t think we could have asked for a better draw,” Red Devils coach Stan Claplanhoo said.
“I base that off who we play, and then seeing some of the other top-tier teams we have played like Seattle Lutheran and Shorewood Christian on the opposite bracket.”
Neah Bay will face Garfield-Palouse (20-2) or Sunnyside Christian (21-2) on the second day of the tournament in either the state semifinals or a loser-out consolation game.
Against Riverside Christian, the Red Devils held a slim 23-21 lead at halftime due to a cold start from the floor.
“We held them to 21 points but we only had 23 points, so I was wondering if we focused too much on our defense in practice,” Claplanhoo said.
“There were some nerves too, it being regionals. Took them some time to calm down.”
Just as they did in the regular season in a 17-point comeback win against Forks, or in two come-from-behind victories at the Crush in the Slush tournament, the Red Devils stayed calm and fought back in the second half to defeat Riverside Christian (15-10).
“We just didn’t panic,” Claplanhoo said.
“Third quarter, I think Riverside had a good run, went up eight points, so I called a timeout and told them it wasn’t anything to worry about.
“Just realize you can’t bite off the whole deficit with one basket and work on one possession at a time on defense and on offense.
“And once our press started to take effect, they started to make mistakes and we took advantage of them.”
The Red Devils were led by senior Ryan Moss’ 23 points and eight rebounds.
Moss and Rwehabura Munyagi Jr. came up big for Neah Bay down the stretch.
“Ryan’s leadership really came out in the second half,” Claplanhoo said.
“The kids really look up to him. And we put the ball in Ryan’s hands.”
Munyagi notched all six of his points in the fourth quarter. He added four steals and three rebounds on the game.
“We moved Rweha down low to the post from point guard,” Claplanhoo said.
“We attacked their weakness which was inside and went to the post in the third and fourth quarter.”
Kenrick Doherty Jr. added 11 points, eight rebounds and three assists for the Red Devils.
Post Reggie Buttram hauled down 11 rebounds and scored six points with three assists to help Neah Bay.
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Compiled using team reports.
