MILL CREEK — After dropping its first two games of the season by 22 and 23 points, respectively, it looked like it might be a long season for Jackson’s boys basketball team.
Now it appears it’s the Timberwolves’ opponents that might be in for a struggle.
With a 65-51 victory over Lake Stevens on Friday, the Timberwolves won their third consecutive game and improved to 3-0 in Wesco 4A play and 3-2 overall.
Jackson’s players lack much varsity experience, having been stuck the past several seasons behind a group of players that included Jason Todd, Dan Kingma and Brian Zehr. That inexperience didn’t show against the Vikings.
“They have a small window of time to kind of make their mark,” Jackson coach Steve Johnson said. “I think that they’ve kind of always felt like they were behind an unusually large and really good senior class. Everyone knows that. … Now, they’ve gotten their feet under them, so to speak, and they’ve gotten a little more confident. It’s a long way to go. It’s early in the season, but we did target the first three league games as what we really tried to focus on. It’s nice to have some success and build on some things, but it’s a long way to go.”
Jackson senior guard Frank Rossi made sure momentum was on the side of his team early in the first quarter. Rossi scored 11 of his game-high 21 points in the first quarter and connected on his first six field goal attempts. Rossi’s offense helped the Timberwolves close out the opening stanza with an 11-0 run to take a 22-6 lead.
“He played great,” Johnson said. “I’ve always thought he was a capable player. He was just kind of waiting his turn behind a bunch of good guys in previous years in the program. I thought he played a little too fast and a little too hurried in our first couple games of the year. He’s really relaxed and settled down. He had a good game up in Mount Vernon and obviously played well tonight.”
Rossi benefitted from a Lake Stevens defense that appeared to focus much of its attention on junior guard Sam Saufferer, who was coming off a 34-point performance in Tuesday’s win over Snohomish.
“All the guys were moving the ball around really well and we were getting the defense to shift and I just got my shots from them moving the ball really well,” Rossi said.
Jackson’s offense stalled in the second quarter and Lake Stevens cut the deficit, which had been as many as 17, to 10 at halftime.
That was as close as the Vikings got.
Saufferer picked up the Timberwolves’ offense in the third quarter, scoring 11 of his 15 points and Jackson pushed the lead back up to 20 by the end of the quarter.
“They were obviously keying on him quite a bit and some open shots were available to other people, so it was nice that he took what the defense gave him,” Johnson said. “Obviously in the third quarter he got more opportunities, but early in the game when we built the lead, other people were getting good shots and making them. We took what the defense gave us.”
Jackson also created a lot of its own offense by getting stops defensively.
“We got out and ran and we got some good transition baskets,” Johnson said. “We like to think we’re a quick team and that’s one of our strengths. We can play fast and push the ball. When we can force the other team to miss and when we rebound, we’re capable of getting the ball up the floor and getting good transition baskets and that’s kind of what we did in the first quarter.”
After dropping its first two games, it seemed Jackson’s winning tradition might be in jeopardy and Rossi admits he and his teammates were initially intimidated by the challenge.
“We came out those first two games and were really scared and timid and I thought we got kind of down on ourselves,” he said. “That kind of gave us the good push to come out in these first three league games and really show what we’ve got.”
At Jackson H.S.
Lake Stevens6121221—51
Jackson2262215—65
Lake Stevens—Josh Perry 7, Josh Rasmussen 0, Garret Glick 3, Justin Brown 2, Riley Krenz 2, Dante Lewis 2, Neil Blaine 4, Jacob Eason 18, Wyatt Wahlberg 2, Conor Widmann 0, Trey Pavitt 4, Conor Bardue 7. Jackson—Frank Rossi 21, Dolan Tierney 8, Ian Willgress 2, Brian Brown 2, Markus Sullivan 2, Yegor Gorbenko 5, Connor Marschall 3, Ethan Hammond 0, Parker Manalo 5, Sam Saufferer 15, Colton Faddis 2. 3-point goals—Bardue 1, Perry 1, Glick 1, Gorbenko 1, Rossi 2, Saufferer 1, Manalo 1. Records—Lake Stevens 0-3 league, 1-6 overall. Jackson 3-0, 3-2.
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