MILL CREEK — To a lesser team, the first quarter of Friday night’s Northwest 4A district semifinal boys basketball game could have been a knockout blow.
For Jackson, however, it was merely a bump on the road back to state.
Some teams might have panicked after giving up 16 unanswe
red points to end the opening quarter, but Jackson, a team that starts four seniors, a team that made it to the state championship game last year, and team that went undefeated in league play stayed calm. The Timberwolves corrected their mistakes, dominated for the next three quarters and cruised to an 82-53 victory over Arlington to clinch a second straight state berth, a first in program history.
“We have poise and composure,” said Jackson coach Steve Johnson, whose team surrendered 16 unanswered points to end the first quarter and trailed by as many as 12 points in the second quarter. “We’ve been through some battles before. I thought we showed composure there. There wasn’t any panic. Sometimes experience is the best remedy for that.”
Experience paid off in the form of Oregon-bound guard Brett Kingma, who bounced back from a rough first quarter (two of nine shooting) to hit five of eight shots on the way to 14 second-quarter points. Experience showed up in the second half in the form of senior forward Austin O’Keefe, who scored 20 of his season-high 26 after halftime.
“We didn’t panic,” said Kingma, who scored 21 of his 26 points in the first half. “We knew that if we played our game we could put it on them like we did. We’re not going to be scared of anyone. If we put a full game together like we played for the last three quarters, I think we’ll be able to contend for a state title again.”
And it wasn’t just the upper classmen getting the job done for the third-ranked Timberwolves, who improved to 20-2 with the win. Freshman forward Jason Todd scored 11 points, all in the second half, and added 11 rebounds and eight assists, and sophomore guard Sam Brown, playing extra minutes with starter Chima Acholonu battling foul trouble, had nine points, including six in the pivotal second quarter.
It was in that second quarter that Jackson snapped out of its funk and took control for good. The Eagles (16-6), who face Kamiak in a loser-out game on Tuesday, led 27-15 at one point, much to the surprise of the home crowd, but from that point on the Timberwolves locked down on defense and the shots stopped falling for Arlington as Jackson outscored the Eagles 67-26 over the next two and a half quarters.
“We let some guys get loose on open jumpers, guys we knew could shoot, and they made them,” Johnson said of the first quarter. “Then in the second quarter we started contesting shots and playing better defense. We did that really from the second quarter on, then got back into it and took the lead, then really continued that defensive intensity. And obviously when we play better defensively, it allows us to play better on offense.”
Sophomore guard Terry Dawn led Arlington with 11 points, all of which came in the first half, and senior guard Zach Cooper added nine points.
Arlington coach Nick Brown was frustrated not so much because his team lost, but because of the way the Eagles let the game get away from them.
“Ten points turned into 15 turned into 20, and we hung our heads a little bit,” Brown said. “It was tough. They’re a good squad. I’m not saying we shouldn’t lose to that team, but we shouldn’t lose like that. We lost a little bit of our fire. … To beat a team like Jackson we have to have our best for four quarters, and we only had it for two. Or maybe a quarter and a half.”
That being said, Brown isn’t worried about his team’s ability to bounce back with the season on the line next week.
“My guys don’t need firing up,” he said. “They’re warriors. This group is the best group of kids I could ever ask for. Their warrior mentality is unmatchable.”
At Jackson H.S.
Arlington 20 12 10 11 — 53
Jackson 11 24 24 23 — 82
Arlington—Carlson 8, Cooper 9, Dawn 11, Goheen 2, Commings 1, Ginnis 9, Davis 0, Brummel 7, Struiksma 0, Ladines 2, Petersen 2, Boyden 2. Jackson—Acholonu 4, B Kingma 26, Brown 9, Graff 1, D Kingma 1, Saufferer 0, Todd 11, O’Keefe 26, Gilchrist 4, Valdez 0, Waite 0. 3-point goals—Cooper 3, Dawn 3, Ginnis 1, Kingma 4, Brown 1, O’Keefe 1. Records—Arlington 16-6, Jackson 20-2.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.
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