BOTHELL — With a 10-point lead and four minutes to play, the outlook was good for the Jackson boys basketball team on Monday night.
But with their leading scorer home sick and with a roster of players shy of varsity experience, holding onto a double-digit lead down the stretch was hardly a sure thing for the Timberwolves.
Sure enough, Newport scored the game’s final 12 points in that four-minute stretch, including the winning basket by guard Jake Higgins with 10 seconds to play, to overtake and defeat Jackson 52-50 in a semifinal game of the Bothell Holiday Tournament.
Jackson had a chance to win at the end, but a 3-point shot by forward Yegor Gorbenko bounced off the back rim an instant before the final horn sounded.
“For 80 percent of that game, we played well enough to win,” said Jackson coach Steve Johnson. “But we have to learn how to finish games, and that’s probably one of the toughest things for kids who are inexperienced at the varsity level to learn how to do.
“But in a non-league game at this point in the season, while it’s disappointing, hopefully we’ll learn from it,” he said. “As I just told the team, as much as (losing) stings and as much as we’d like to be in the (tournament) championship game (today), I’d rather have a game like this in December and then hopefully learn from it in February.”
After sparring with Newport through the first quarter and the opening minutes of the second quarter, the T-wolves appeared to take command with a string of 16 straight points. Twelve of those points followed a Jackson timeout with 3:10 to play before halftime, and they turned an eight-point deficit into a 31-27 margin at the break.
The T-wolves then scored the first four points of the third quarter, and later scored six straight points to open the fourth period, giving them a 48-36 lead with 5:26 remaining. That 12-point margin was their largest of the game.
Alas, Jackson would only score two more points the rest of the way, and that came on a shot from the key by guard Dolan Tierney with 4:02 left.
Down the stretch, the T-wolves missed free throws and short shots around the basket. Inside the last two minutes they also had a shot blocked and committed a critical turnover.
“We took pretty good care of the ball throughout the game,” Johnson said, “but we lost some possessions in that 12-0 run which obviously really hurt. And we had some pretty good shots, but we just didn’t quite finish.”
Higgins, a 6-foot-4 senior, was also a nemesis, scoring Newport’s last nine points in the final 31/2 minutes. He finished with a game-high 24 points.
Gorbenko led the T-wolves with 18 points, while Tierney added 15 and guard Frank Rossi had 11.
The defeat dropped Jackson’s season record to 4-3, though the T-wolves have a 3-0 Western Conference 4A mark.
“I think we can compete in our league,” Johnson said. “I think we’ll be there as much as anybody else because our league is wide open. There’s going to be a lot of close games (the rest of the season) and I think we need to learn from this.
“(Losing) is disappointing, but the silver lining is that we played well enough to win against a quality team and hopefully we learn from the negative and build on the positive,” he said.
Guard Sam Saufferer, Jackson’s top scorer and the player with the most varsity experience from a year ago, felt ill at a team practice last Friday and missed Saturday’s opener of the Bothell tournament. Johnson was hopeful of having him on Monday, but Saufferer seemed to relapse and now is not expected to play in tonight’s 7 p.m. consolation final.
At Bothell H.S.
Newport 15 12 9 16 — 52
Jackson 14 17 11 8 — 50
Newport—David Babayan 5, Jace Goforth 0, Jye Hill 4, Ryan Kingma 3, Jake Higgins 24, Hasan Mangrio 0, Michael Nesvik 4, Cole Ruud Johnson 0, A.J. Block 3, Calvin Throckmorton 9.
Jackson—Frank Rossi 11, Dolan Tierney 15, Ian Willgress 0, Brian Brown 2, Markus Sullivan 0, Connor Marschall 0, Yegor Gorbenko 18, Parker Manalo 0, Colton Faddis 4.
3-point goals_David Babayan 1, Jake Higgins 1, A.J. Block 1, Dolan Tierney 1.
Records_Newport is 5-2, Jackson is 4-3.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
