Top-ranked Pioneers await Outlaws in Pendleton

Published 8:00 pm Monday, February 26, 2024

ENTERPRISE — The reward for the Enterprise girls basketball team’s first-round state tournament win: a date in the 2A state quarterfinals against the state’s top-ranked team.

Eighth-seeded Enterprise will step on the court at 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Pendleton Convention Center to meet the top-seeded Western Christian Pioneers of Salem. The victorious team goes to the semifinal round on Friday against the winner of a Nestucca/Knappa quarterfinal matchup. The loser moves to the consolation bracket on Friday, playing against the loser of the Nestucca/Knappa game.

Coach Dan Butterfield and the Outlaw girls are riding a hot streak into Pendleton. The team, the champions of the Blue Mountain Conference, has won its last three games, all in postseason play. These victories include downing both Stanfield and Weston-McEwen in the conference tournament and taking an 11-point victory over ninth-seeded Willamina in the first round of the state playoffs.

Defense has been the key in the last three games with Enterprise holding opponents to 37 points or less in all three. Stingy defense has been a trademark for the Outlaws this season; the team has allowed just 921 points, allowing opponents an average of 35.4 points a game.

That will be tested against Western Christian (27-1 overall), which boasts the second-most productive offense in the 2A ranks. The Pioneers have scored 1,540 points this season — an average of 55 points a game.

And the Pioneers can play defense as well: In 14 of their games this season, the Pioneers have held opponents to less than 30 points. In the team’s 54-15 victory over Vernonia in the first round of the playoffs, the Pioneers allowed nine points in the first quarter — and then just six points over the final three quarters.

The Pioneers played to a perfect 15-0 showing in the 2A Tri-River Conference with the lone defeat coming on Dec. 8 in a nonleague matchup with Bandon, a 42-55 loss.

The Pioneers are led by the 2A Tri-River Conference Player of the Year Runon Muroya, a 5-foot-8-inch sophomore guard. Haley Ferry, a 5-foot-10-inch junior and Haley Miersma, a 5-foot-5-inch sophomore, joined Muroya on the conference’s first team.

Western Christian has height inside with 6-foot-2-inch freshman Avery Herber and 5-foot-10-inch junior Alexi Herber, both second-team honorees for the conference.