Mules split with Toledo, Napavine

Last week, Brodie Avalon, a senior on the Wahkiakum Mules boys basketball team tied a school scoring record with 43 points. This week, he hit the 1,000 point career mark.

"Brodie has put more time in the gym than anybody since I've been coaching," Coach Todd Souvenir said. "I'm really proud of him and happy for him to achieve those individual goals, but I know for him, the most important goals are upcoming and in front of us and all team oriented. It was cool to see the team support him and be excited for him in those moments."

The Mules split games this week at home, with a loss on Thursday, followed by a win on Saturday.

On Thursday, the Mules lost to Napavine 80-64.

"We knew they were good defensively, and have a couple good offensive pieces," Souvenir said. "I thought we did really good defensively through three quarters and I was really proud of the guys. Overall, playing one of the top teams in the league, it was a positive. It was a loss in the column, but I think the guys need to look at the game as we improved and prepared ourselves for the district tournament. It was a really good game for us, it challenged us in different ways. I thought we improved in that game for sure."

Zakk Carlson scored 19 points. Avalon added 18 points. Dominic Curl had 11 points. Kyler Sause had nine points. Jacob Johnson had five points and Titan Niemela had two.

 Napavine 22 11 17 30 -80

 Mules 16 18 10 20 -64

The Mules added to their win column on Saturday, beating Toledo 59-49.

"Toledo always plays good defense," Souvenir said. "They keep you out of the key, they contest every shot and they rebound really well. Nothing comes easy. I was a little worried about it. We didn't have our best offensive night of the year. We fell behind 8-0, called a timeout, and the guys managed to regroup and went on a 12-0 run. They took the lead and never looked back. I told the guys after the game that it definitely wasn't the cleanest game offensively, but again, we won the game because of our defense, which has been a theme throughout the season. Eventually our offense will catch up with what we are doing on the defensive end.

Avalon scored 13 points. Johnson added 12 points. Carlson scored 11. Sause had nine points. Curl and Niemela added five points each. Victor Carvalho had three points, and Tanner Collupy had one.

Toledo 12 9 13 15 -49

Mules 18 14 14 13 -59

The Mules traveled to Adna on Wednesday to face a tough Pirate team, but the score was not available by press time.

They host Onalaska on Friday and travel to Toutle Lake next Wednesday.