Thoughts from Saturday’s 4A boys District 1 tournament

Published 12:56 am Sunday, February 19, 2012

Fans who attended Jackson High School for the final day of the 4A District 1 boys basketball tournament on Saturday were treated to two outstanding games that featured four very good teams.

Jackson defeated Snohomish 60-57 to take the district championship. Jackson goes into regionals with the No. 1 seed and Snohomish goes in with the No. 2 seed. In the earlier game, Lake Stevens defeated Edmonds-Woodway 57-51. The Vikings move on to play a crossover game with the Kingco’s No. 3 seed Bothell on Tuesday night for a berth in regionals, while the Warriors season came to an end.

What did we learn about the teams involved?

We didn’t learn much about Jackson other than what we already knew. Jackson is very good. Jason Todd is a great player, Dan Kingma can shoot the ball and the young Timberwolves look like a team that can beat anyone on any given day.

We learned a bit more about Snohomish, or at least I did. It had taken me a long time to come around on the Panthers this season, but as I said in a blog post after they beat Lake Stevens last week, I finally became a believer. Despite losing the final, I’m not backing off, in fact I feel even stronger about what I said. Snohomish battled Jackson on the Timberwolves home floor for the entire 32 minutes and came up one 3-pointer shy of forcing overtime. The Panthers did it without guard Luke Hamlin having his best game and other players on the team continued to step up when he was unable to score and when he had to go to the bench in foul trouble. If the Panthers continue to get secondary scoring, they can make noise in regionals and earn a trip to Tacoma.

Lake Stevens did what I expected them to do after they lost to Snohomish – go through the other side of the bracket and advance. The Vikings have great depth and led by Christian Gasca, who is simply one of the most competitive kids I have ever seen, this is a team who can play with anyone on any given night. Don’t expect any team out there to outwork the Vikings. There seems to be a togetherness that this team possesses that I think can take them places. If the Vikings beat Bothell on Tuesday and advance to regionals, watch out for Lake Stevens to be a dark horse.

Finally, Edmonds-Woodway, I think I learned the most about them, which is unfortunate because they are the team that doesn’t play again this season. But my hat is off to the Warriors team. I, like many others, did not pick them to do much in districts, but I underestimated how good their young talent is and how it is getting better all the time. Travis Bakken is a very talented 6-7 post with Division 1 potential and teamed up with 6-8 Henry Olson, the Warriors size can give other teams fits. They are young and it didn’t work out for them this season, but they will be one of my early picks to be near the top of Wesco next season.