TOPPENISH — Tiger head coach Rick Walter said the message in the locker room prior to Friday night's season finale at Toppenish was simple.

"You don't get any more chances this year, and if you're a senior, ever to play high school basketball again," Walter told his players. "Why not end it on a win and compete."

They did just that.

The Ephrata boys basketball team closed its 2025-26 season last Friday, Feb. 6, with a 45-38 win over the Wildcats.

Cody Ogle scored the game's first bucket and Benson Bair followed with back-to-back buckets off two Cooper Black assists to jump out to an early 8-3 lead.

Toppenish responded with a pair of threes and free throws to move ahead 14-13 at the end of the first period. But Ephrata answered by outscoring their hosts 26-14 over the second and third quarters, building a 39-28 lead going into the fourth.

Toppenish cut it to seven points down the stretch, but the Tiger defense turned up the pressure. Bair and Ogle blocked shots, Wilson and Black got steals, and Brady Hendrick sealed the win by shooting two-for-two at the line in the last minute.

At the final buzzer, Bair finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds while Hendrick added 10 points and seven boards.

Alex Bazan paced the Wildcats with 9 points.

"To go on the road in a game that in reality 'means nothing' and compete that hard and focus and play team basketball is really special," Walter said afterward. "That game goes to show the type of kids Ephrata as a community and these parents have raised."

The win provided a positive ending on a 4-17 season that didn't go the way coaches and players wanted or expected. The Tigers were last in the competitive Central Washington Athletic Conference standings with a 3-13 record and missed qualifying for district play for the second time in four years.

"I expected the team to make the playoffs and we were just a couple stops or scores away from achieving that goal," Walter said. "Sometimes it just doesn't go the way you might want. But I appreciated the effort the guys showed and the focus down the stretch to put ourselves in a position to achieve that goal."

Player availability hampered the Tigers' ability to put their best lineups on the floor consistently. "We had a lot of moving parts this year with guys in and out of the rotation," Walter acknowledged, "but overall the guys did a good job of adjusting."

And four losses by four points or fewer — to Othello twice along with East Valley and Toppenish — put their season record in a different light.

"I truly believe this team was good enough to compete in the CWAC with most teams," Walter said. "We just didn't quite finish when we needed to.

In 16 conference games, Ephrata averaged 46 points per outing, but surrendered nearly 61 points on average. The disparity was larger in five non-league games, when the Tigers averaged 38.2 points and were outscored by more than 30 points in losses to Moses Lake, Chelan, West Valley of Spokane and Okanogan. A bright spot came in a 59-41 win over Omak on Ephrata's Marty O'Brien Court.

Reflecting on a season of "what if's," Walter said inconsistent free throw shooting hurt the Tigers in close games. For the season, Ephrata hit just 50.6% from the stripe.

"Free throws for sure," Walter said of that factor in close games. "We had a few games that could have swung our way if we connected on those. Threes were a struggle early on, but toward the end of the year, guys were hitting timely ones to keep us in games."

Offensively, Ephrata's shooting average overall was 33.5%, and dipping to 24.2% from beyond the arc on nearly 19 attempts per game. Among players with 10 or more 3-point attempts, Jose Barrita (32.7%) and Jett Julian (30.2%) topped the Tigers in long-range accuracy.

Walter was philosophical about such stats. "Although we might not have shot a great percentage, not taking the shots when available gives you a zero-percent shot to make them," he said.

Two seniors were three-year varsity players.

Brady Hendrick carried the heaviest load, averaging a team-high 10.8 points per game and pulling down 5.5 rebounds. Hendrick finishes his high school career with 601 points and 378 rebounds. Cooper Black ran the point and concluded the season with 101 assists, 70 rebounds and 94 points in 21 games. He finished his prep career with more than 200 points, 200 assists and 100 steals.

"The biggest thing Coop and Brady bring is 'it' every night," Walter said. "Deflections, tips, rebounds, steals, tie-ups, rotations and taking charges. And their knowledge of the system is going to be missed tremendously,"

"They may have nights where they are not scoring as much as you would like or shooting it great, but what you never have to ask for as a coach is more effort," Walter continued. "The greatest memory those two get to graduate with is knowing that they never got cheated when it comes to competing."

Wyatt Schluckebier and Brice Strickler round out the team's seniors. Schluckebier provided a spark off the bench, including a 14-point performance against Othello in January. Strickler's role grew as the season went on.

Rounding out the roster: Cody Ogle scored 5.5 points per game, shot 37.8% from the field and pulled down three rebounds a night. Junior Caiden Weber produced the best numbers from the free throw line, converting on 61.5% attempts, and contributed a game-high 15 points in a narrow 3-point home loss to Othello.

Junior Mitchell Morford only played 12 of 21 games, but he provided a physical presence when on the court. He was second on the team with 105 rebounds, averaging 8.8 per game, plus 6.8 points on 39.3% shooting. Fellow junior Benson Bair, who appeared in 20 games, averaged 5.1 points and 4.1 rebounds and showed flashes as a shot-blocker with 17 on the season.

"What's interesting about that junior group is the diversity of players," Walter said. "You have bigs, you have bigs that can stretch the floor, you have guards that can handle, guards that play the wing, guards that spot up. If they work over the summer and early fall, I see no reason why that group does not have a great year next year."

Like the varsity, the Tiger jayvee squad also finished at 4-17, but the C-team of freshmen and sophomores posted a 14-8 record, a bright spot on the season.

"I think the coaches did a great job of bringing kids along and creating a competitive nature," said Walter.

But he thinks the path to varsity success runs through reps in the gym. "Taking five shots in a game does not allow a kid to change his form or build his skill set, whereas 300 shots in a half hour in the gym allows a kid to build memory and confidence."

And that starts at a young age. "Youth basketball is great and we need kids playing to learn to love basketball," said Walter.

For those teams qualifying for CWAC district play, first-round action saw fifth-seeded Toppenish lose to eighth-seeded Quincy 61-52 and seventh-seeded East Valley fell to sixth-seeded Othello 81-75 in loser-out contests.

On the double-elimination side, top-seeded Selah handled fourth-seeded Ellensburg 66-38 and second-seeded Grandview routed third-seeded Prosser in a 71-49 win.

The remaining CWAC teams will play a second round of loser-out contests this Saturday, Feb 14. Ellensburg will host Quincy and Othello travels to Prosser. The winners advance to the semifinal round versus Grandview and Selah on Feb. 17.