Basketball and wrestling practices begin this week

As the fall sports season wraps up, winter sports are hitting the ground running – with wrestling and boys and girls basketball all beginning practice this week around Whitman County.

With all of the teams around the region kicking off – there are a few teams and storylines to watch heading into the season.

Girls Basketball

The Colfax girls basketball team is looking to pick off where they left off a season ago.

The Lady Bulldogs only had one loss heading into the state tournament, losing to Liberty (Spangle) by three points in overtime and that continued into the 2021-22 2B state tournament, with Colfax winning their first three state games against Lake Roosevelt, Raymond and Liberty (Spangle) by a combined 78 points.

The Bulldogs faced off against the No. 2-seeded Warden Cougars in the state championship game, where they lost 70-55.

Colfax will look to end this season on a similar run, this time ending with a state championship trophy.

Colton and Garfield-Palouse are both looking to make that final push to the 1B championship game after falling in the semifinal rounds last season.

Colton headed into the tournament as the No. 2-seed and had defeated Wellpint by 31 and Pomeroy by 14 before falling 48-41 to Neah Bay in a semifinal round.

Garfield-Palouse had the No. 5-seed and beat Wilbur-Creston-Keller by 13 and Mossyrock by five points before falling to eventual champions Mount Vernon Christian in the other semifinal round 38-32.

The two teams ended up playing to determine the third-place finisher in the tournament, with the Vikings defeating the Wildcats 28-22.

The two teams will hope to make that final push to state championship contention this upcoming season.

Boys basketball

Colfax headed into the boys basketball 2B state tournament as the No. 3-seed but ended up on the wrong side of an upset against No. 5-seed Morton-White Pass 64-60.

Colfax did end up coming home with some hardware, beating Columbia (Burbank) 80-45 to secure a fourth-place finish in the tournament, but had to watch the Liberty Lancers from Spangle take the championship trophy.

The Lancers were a familiar rival for the Bulldogs. The two teams played three times in the 2021-22 season, with Colfax winning the first meeting 68-65, and Liberty taking the final two by scores of 61-52 and 62-56.

Colfax will hope to end up the ones on top this upcoming season.

On the 1B side of things, no team from Whitman County ended up making the trip up to Spokane for the state tournament – but Oakesdale was the closest in that regard, finishing third in the league with a 16-9 overall record and a 10-5 league record.

Oakesdale was four points away from advancing in the district tournament and potentially heading to state but fell 45-41 to Liberty Christian (Richland).

Tekoa-Rosalia was another Whitman County team that finished the season with a winning record overall and in league but failed to advance to the state tournament.

Both teams will have something to prove and hope to provide representation from Whitman County in the state tournament this season.

Wrestling

Trentin Ensley was the lone Colfax competitor to head to the Mat Wrestling Classic in Tacoma last season, competing in the 182-pound weight class. Being a senior, Ensley graduated and Colfax will look to add more representation to the Tacoma Dome as February rolls around this season.

On the 1B side of things, the girls wrestling division has been separated into 1B-2A classification for one, and 3A-4A for another, making it easier for girl wrestlers to represent their schools in regionals.

Tekoa-Rosalia’s Alexis Taylor was an alternate for regionals last year, and may look at a potential state berth given the new classifications.

Garfield-Palouse wrestler Laynie Southern is another one that can potentially make the push to state given the new classification.

A full winter sports preview section will come in the following weeks.