By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
STAYTON, Ore.– It has never been about the record or the accolades for Isaiah Koehnke at Regis High School. It’s been about the team and doing his part to help the team.
Nonetheless, achieving the 2,500 point milestone has put Koehnke in some rarefied air with a guarantee of three games left in his High School career, and the possibility of six as well if they get to March 8 in Pendleton.
On February 7, 2025, Koehnke became the fifth Oregon Boys Basketball player to achieve the 2,500 point total when the Rams played Colton at Colton after starting the year with 1,975 career points.
Over the course of the year Koehnke has passed former NFL quarterback Derek Anderson (1,981 career points), current NBA player Payton Pritchard (2,114), current Oregon Duck Jackson Shelstad (2162), former NBA players in Salim Stoudamire (2,219) and Kyle Singler (2,207). Working his way up the All-Time points List.
Sitting at 2,521 points going into Wednesday’s game with Santiam in the Tri-River Conference League Playoffs, Koehnke sits behind Toledo-grad Conner Merchant, Knappa-grad Bob “Pudgy” Hunt and Lake Oswego-grad and NBA All-Star Kevin Love at fourth All-Time.
Love has the All-Time record at 2,628 points, only 107 points ahead of where Koehnke is at right now.
“It’s definitely weird to think it out. It’s cool, though, it’s a cool feeling to know that I’m on a list with them. It’s a cool feeling,” said Koehnke. “It wasn’t anything I was aiming for, just playing basketball. It feels good to hit that I wasn’t ever shooting for it or thought it’ll be something I’ll ever hit.”
In 118 career games to this point, Koehnke has averaged 21.36 points a game to go with 7.1 assists a game as well.
And though the All-Time record is looming and within reach for the Regis senior, the goal is to get to March 8 and play in the final game on that day: The State Championship game.
To do that, it starts on Wednesday against the Wolverines. A win there would place them in the Tri-River Conference League Championship game against Western Christian going into the 2A State Playoffs next week. Koehnke continues his work post-practice by putting up some shots with a few teammates, knowing that his personal accolades are great and all, but it’s the push for the title that he wants as well.
“There is no number or goal I’m aiming for. I just want to win every game and keep going with my team and see how far we can go. There’s some good challenges in 2A this year. It’s going to be really tough,” said Koehnke. “I just want to get better every day so we can achieve our team goal with hopefully a State Championship.”
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
