CHEHALIS — Forks controlled the second half to shake loose of Toledo 50-31 in a winner-to-state District IV girls basketball tournament contest and seal a return to the Class 2B state tournament.

“We knew coming in that we had to worry about ourselves and get active defensively and in how we rebounded the ball,” coach David Hurn said.

“We did well in the first half to limit Toledo to one-shot opportunities Avery Dilley and Bailey Johnson were good on the boards. We were just playing with maybe a little too much adrenaline and emotion because it was a loser-out game.”

The Spartans did it the hard way, winning three straight loser-out district tournament games after losing in the second round to Toutle Lake. They didn’t mess around, however, winning those three games by an average of 24 points.

Spartans seniors Keira Johnson and Janessa Ramos sparked Forks in the third quarter.

“They got us back to playing our style, we want to play fast and uptempo,” Hurn said.

Keira Johnson scored 18 of her game-high 29 points in the second half.

“I think she had four straight trips down the floor that produced nine points in about two minutes,” Hurn said.

Forks celebrated its return trip to state in the locker room before jumping on “a long bus ride home,” Hurn said.

“It’s a grinding tournament. We played five road games and all of them are three-hour plus road trips.”

Forks (19-7, No. 9 RPI) was seeded No. 14 at state and will play No. 11 Cle Elum-Roslyn (17-7, No. 14 RPI) on Friday or Saturday, site still to be determined.

Forks 50, Toledo 31

Toledo 8 7 8 8 — 31

Forks 10 10 17 13 — 50

Forks K. Johnson 29, B. Johnson 9, Ramos 6, Dilley 4, Daniels 2.