PALOUSE — The Garfield-Palouse High girls’ basketball team captured its first Whitman County League title by defeating Tekoa-Oakesdale 43-42 Saturday night.
The final regular-season contest leaves the Vikings at 8-0 in league play and 13-6 overall heading into the county tournament. Garfield-Palouse has a bye into Saturday’s championship game.
Against Tekoa-Oakesdale, the Vikings rallied from five points down with a little less than three minutes to go. However, once they got the lead, the Vikings couldn’t gain any breathing room as they missed their free throws down the stretch.
That gave Tekoa-Oakesdale a couple opportunities to gain the lead, but a couple of turnovers and a desperation 30-foot miss at the buzzer was the end result.
‘’In the last minute and a half, well, I’m a loud mouth and I was yelling as loud as I could for a timeout, but the girls’ couldn’t hear me,’’ Garfield-Palouse coach Roger Guiney said. ‘’That is how loud is was. The place was packed and the gym was vibrating.’’
‘’I mean it’s great we won this game, but the only thing I wish is that we would have won by a few more points. I’m a doggone nervous wreck. That was a tense game.’’
Tekoa-Oakesdale had a chance to tie Garfield-Palouse for the league title with a win, but finishes WCL play at 6-2 and will be seeded second at the county tournament.
This story was published in the Feb. 4, 1990, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.
