State 1B boys: Wellpinit rallies to win second consecutive state championship

Facing a team it beat one week before, the Wellpinit boys basketball team knew the challenge ahead on Saturday night in the State 1B championship game.

It was another team with the size that Wellpinit itself did not have.

Once again, it didn’t matter.

Down nine points in the fourth quarter, second-seeded Wellpinit (24-2) went on a 16-0 run to burst past the seventh-seeded Mossyrock Vikings (19-8) 60-56 for a second championship in as many seasons.

Senior Grant Denison III scored 18 points, junior Franky Wynne added 13 points and senior Jordan Montgomery had 12 – all on 3-pointers – to lead Wellpinit back after it trailed most of the first half and deep into the second.

Wellpinit’s comeback coincided with Mossyrock 6-foot-4 senior Hunter Isom getting his fifth foul with 4:38 to go in the game. At the time, Mossyrock led 51-44.

But Wellpinit stormed back. Montgomery hit a pair of key 3-pointers during the run, one to tie it at 51, another to give his team a 56-51 lead with 1:25 left. In the previous two games of the tournament, he had scored just five points.

Montgomery said that on the bus ride over to the Arena, his teammates were asking him why he wasn’t shooting more. They told him he needed to change that.

“They told me to launch it,” Montgomery said. “I’m glad they believed in me.”

Denison, the team’s tallest player at 6-2, led Wellpinit in scoring each of the three games, following up performances of 31 points and 26 points in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively, with a 6-for-12 shooting night. He also had nine rebounds.

The second-place finish was Mossyrock’s best at state. Isom led the Vikings in scoring with 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Junior Easton Kolb had a double-double with 14 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. Senior Zack Munoz added 14 points.

Mossyrock, like other Wellpinit opponents, struggled against a pressure defense. The Vikings had 17 turnovers after Wellpinit’s previous two opponents – Neah Bay and Columbia Adventist – combined for 39.

“It means a lot,” Wellpinit coach Billy Flett Sr. said of the second title. “We lost a lot of weight and height from last year’s team. A lot of people thought we would not be able to do it. But we had the hustle and the defense.”

Wellpinit defeated Mossyrock 58-47 in the regionals.

Wellpinit is the first repeat 1B boys champions since Sunnyside Christian – the team Wellpinit beat last year in the title game – won three from 2017-19.