Jackson hits glass hard in win over E-W

MILL CREEK — The Edmonds-Woodway boys basketball team got one buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Devin Joseph against Jackson on Friday.

They needed two.

Joseph made a 3-pointer just inside of half court to end the first half to cut the Jackson lead to four, but his attempt from beyond half court as time expired in the fourth quarter went off the glass and the Warriors fell to the Timberwolves 53-50 in a Wesco 4A South game.

The Warriors came out in a 2-3 zone defense that seemed to give the Timberwolves fits.

Well everyone except Jason Todd.

Todd scored 29 of the Timberwolves’ 53 points and shot 12-for-23 from the field. Todd, guard Dan Kingma and forward Brian Zehr combined to score 51 of the Timberwolves 53 points.

“His (Todd’s) offensive rebounding and timely baskets and getting in the teeth of their zone was huge,” Jackson coach Steve Johnson said. “We definitely did need that. We needed him. It was like that when we played them the first time. He picked us up and made some huge baskets in the fourth quarter when we were kind of starving for hoops.”

More than their scoring contributions, Zehr and Todd combined for 11 of the Timberwolves’ 13 offensive rebounds, something that Edmonds-Woodway coach Steve Call said cost his team the game.

“They work,” Call said. “Offensive rebounds were the key, I think, to the win for them.”

While the zone seemed to slow down the Timberwolves’ high-powered offense, Johnson said playing zone can sometimes lead to offensive rebounding opportunities and Jackson was able to take advantage of that.

“That’s one negative side of a zone is you don’t have a check off responsibility, you don’t have block out responsibility within a zone in theory,” Johnson said. “So we did encourage the kids to pound the offensive glass.”

Many of the Timberwolves’ chances on the offensive glass came on long rebounding opportunities.

“The zone forces a lot of outside shots sometimes and the offensive glass is a great way to find points,” Todd said. “So Brian and I were able to do that tonight. Whenever you play a zone there is always long rebounds and long shots so you just got to be ready for it at all times.”

The Timberwolves led by seven going into the final quarter when the Warriors made one final push. Brad Rice knocked down two 3-pointers early in the quarter to cut the Jackson lead to three. The lead fluctuated between three and seven points and the Warriors kept it at three for the final minute and a half of the game.

Trailing 53-50, Alex Hull missed an open look at a 3 with just over eight seconds left in the game. Edmonds-Woodway was still two fouls away from the bonus so nearly four more seconds ticked off the clock before they could finally send the Timberwolves to the line for the one-and-one. Edmonds-Woodway fouled Kingma, who missed his free throw. The Warriors grabbed the rebound and quickly called timeout.

With 3.6 seconds left in the game, Call designed a play for Joseph in the huddle that looked like it had a chance of at least getting him the ball with space to make something happen after he had gotten away from his defender, but Jackson’s Riley Waite got his hand on the inbounds pass. Joseph was able to get to the ball and throw up a shot from beyond half court, but it hit the glass and fell to the floor ending the game.

“It was big,” Johnson said of the tipped pass. “Riley did a great job. That’s why we sent him in there, to get a tall guy on the basketball and that was obviously a big play because it basically blew up the whole play right from the get go.”

Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on twitter @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.

At Jackson H.S.

Edmonds-Woodway15121211—50

Jackson1714157—53

Edmonds-Woodway—Devin Joseph 8, Alex Hull 7, Brad Rice 6, Luke Langdale 0, Theo Lebesis 2, Jason Smarr 10, Travis Bakken 12, Henry Olson 4. Jackson—Kyle Graff 0, Dan Kingma 10, Jason Todd 29, Brian Zehr 12, Marcus Blake 0, Derrick Bates 0, Connor Willgress 2, Riley Waite 0. 3-point goals—Hull 1, Joseph 1, Rice 2, Kingma 2, Todd 1. Records—Edmonds-Woodway 7-4 league, 9-7 overall. Jackson 11-0, 15-0.