Jackson earns state tourney berth

MARYSVILLE

Mission accomplished, now it’s time to relax — sort of.

The Jackson Timberwolves punched their ticket to the 4A state tournament with a 54-43 victory over the Lake Stevens Vikings in a 4A District 1 semifinal girls basketball game Feb. 17 at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

Jackson (20-2 overall), the Wesco South No. 1 seed, advances to Saturday’s 6 p.m. 4A District championship game versus Snohomish, the Wesco North No. 3, at Jackson High School.

“To win this game and to play for the district championships, takes so much pressure off,” Jackson head coach Jeannie Thompson said.

To earn the berth Jackson had to fight through a tough Lake Stevens team that a year ago defeated the Timberwolves in the same situation in the district tournament.

After the loss to the Vikings, Jackson then had to fight through the losers’ bracket before earning the school’s first trip to state.

This year Thompson and the Timberwolves wanted none of that added pressure.

“There is so much nerves on (the semifinal game) because you know it’s an automatic bid. You don’t want to have to fight through the loser bracket. The last couple of years when we were in a situation like this we got shaky. Tonight our experience finally came through,” Thompson said.

And it was that experience that came through when Jackson needed it.

Jackson pounded the ball inside to senior post player Brittany Eskridge in the fourth quarter and Eskridge came through.

The Oregon State-bound senior scored eight of her 12 points in the quarter and the Timberwolves turned a three-point lead into a nine-point advantage with just over four minutes remaining.

Eskridge, who played sparingly in the first three quarters because of foul trouble, grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds and had four blocked shots.

“She got into early foul trouble, which slowed our offense down. Our kids that came off the bench did a great job in the first half, buying time for us to get her back into the game and to use her height,” Thompson said.

Junior point guard Kristi Kingma scored a game-high 21 points, 10 in the second quarter and senior Michelle Addington added nine.

Jackson took a 16-11 first-quarter lead before the Vikings got hot.

Led by Ashley Housden’s nine second-quarter points the Vikings took a 23-21 lead with two minutes remaining and entered halftime behind 28-27.

“We knew Lake Stevens was going to play us hard. They are very well coached, very tall, and very long. They have a lot of offensive weapons. We knew we were going to have to battle their size and be able to hit our shots from the outside and be able to rebound on the defensive end,” Thompson said.

Housden finished with 15 points and nine rebounds and Mary Ochiltree added nine for Lake Stevens.

Kevin Johnson writes for The Herald in Everett.

Timberwolves off to fast start at districts

Jackson’s off to a good start.

The Timberwolves began the Feb. 14 4A District 1 first-round girls basketball game with a 12-0 run and were never threatened in posting a 57-43 win over Oak Harbor.

Jackson made three of its four 3-point goals in the first quarter in taking an 18-7 lead.

The Timberwolves also out-scored Oak Harbor 20-15 in the third quarter to take a 16-point lead into the final period. Brittany Eskridge scored six points and Kristi Kingma and Michelle Addington added five each in the period.

Eskridge also had 11 rebounds and Kingma contributed seven assists while holding Oak Harbor’s leading scorer, Mietra Smollack, to three points.

“Kingma did a really good job shutting her down,” Jackson coach Jeannie Thompson said. “We got her in foul trouble, too. She fouled out late in the fourth quarter. Down the stretch that made a big difference.”