MILL CREEK — The Jackson boys basketball team proved a couple of points in its first-round 4A Northwest District playoff contest.
One was that defense wins games and the other was that teams from the Western Conference South Division are more than a match for their North Division counterparts.
The Timberwolves overcome an 11-point fourth quarter deficit with defense and clutch shooting to edge Stanwood 66-64 in overtime Feb. 22 at Jackson High School.
Wolfpack senior guard Brian Rucker scored his team’s final five points in overtime to set off a wild celebration at center court with much of Jackson’s student body.
But defense was the catalyst for the come-from-behind victory.
Trailing 49-38, the Wolfpack went to a full-court pressure defense at the start of the fourth quarter. The switch paid off immediately as the Spartans struggled to bring the ball down the court.
“We were really frustrated with ourselves and our lack of defense and I think once the fourth quarter hit we realized that this is serious,” Jackson senior guard Brian Rucker said. “We’re down by 11. We really need to pick it up and stop messing around. We really came out hard and we pressed. Our press worked. We forced some turnovers and got some stops and fortunately made some baskets.”
A 9-0 run capped by senior guard Drew Eisinger’s dunk on a fast break cut the deficit to 49-47 early in the fourth quarter. Jackson, which trailed for most of the game, tied the score at 53 and 55 on baskets by Eisinger. A putback basket by junior forward Dan Wishko knotted the score at 57 with about a minute left.
Stanwood missed a pair of free throws with 57 seconds remaining and Jackson had a pair of open shots that did not go in as the game headed into overtime.
Junior forward Derek Anderson’s second overtime basket gave the Spartans a 61-58 lead with 2:55 remaining, but Eisinger sank a pair of free throws to make the score 61-60. Stanwood then missed the front end of a one-on-one free throw opportunity and Rucker made the Spartans pay with a 3-pointer that gave Jackson a 63-61 lead at the 1:40 mark.
Stanwood junior center David Lipinski’s basket tied the score at 63 with one minute to go.
Rucker then scored with 23 seconds remaining to give Jackson a 65-63 advantage at the 23-second mark.
Stanwood’s senior guard Kameron Gambill made one of two free throws to cut the deficit to 65-64 with 21.8 seconds to go. The Spartans then fouled Jackson sophomore guard Jamie Eisinger, who made one of two free throws to extend the Timberwolves’ lead to 66-64.
Jackson’s defense forced Stanwood to call a timeout with 8.1 seconds. The Spartans, however, never got a shot off as the Wolfpack forced an errant pass as time ran out.
“When it came down to it at the end we made a couple of big stops,” Rucker said. “They’re a very talented team. They’re very tough and they proved it today.”
Stanwood executed its halfcourt game well in the first half, jumping out to a 20-14 first quarter lead. Jackson rallied to tie the score at 30 by halftime.
The Spartans reasserted control in the third quarter with a 13-2 run that gave Stanwood an 11-point lead.
“Eleven points. It wasn’t looking good,” Jackson coach Steve Johnson said. “(We) showed a lot of toughness … I thought we were all out of rhythm tonight offensively, but I give a lot of the credit to Stanwood for that.”
Jackson’s decision to go to a full court press changed the flow of the game.
“We just said we’re going to make it difficult for them to do everything,” Johnson said. “We were going to try and change the momentum of the game and we did … that was really key. It made it difficult for them to get into their halfcourt offense.
“Let’s face it they were scoring pretty easy anyway, so I figured we had nothing to lose by trying to extend the floor and make them do something a little bit differently.”
Coming into districts, there was some talk that the South Division teams might not match up well with their Northern Division counterparts.
“We can compete against teams in the North,” Rucker said. “Some people say the South is not as good as the North and that we can’t play with the teams in the North. I think today, even though we struggled, we fought back. We showed we can play with teams in the North.”
Drew Eisinger finished with a game-high 26 points and Jamie Eisinger added 19 points. Rucker had 13 points.
Stanwood was led by Anderson, who scored 24 points, and junior forward David Lipinski, who had 12.
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