Timberwolves come up short

BOTHELL

After somewhat disappointing performances in its first two games of the Comcast Christmas Classic, Jackson finally brought its “A” game against Bothell.

The Timberwolves rallied from an 11-point fourth quarter deficit and had a chance to score the go-ahead basket with eight seconds left to go in the game before falling 66-62 to the Cougars in the seventh/eighth place game Dec. 29 at Bothell High School.

The Wolfpack lost 78-56 to Inglemoor and 83-71 to Bellevue Christian in what head coach Steve Johnson described as less than stellar efforts.

“We played much better today,” Johnson said. “We knew we were going to play three good teams no matter who we played or what bracket we were in and in the first two, I didn’t think we competed very well.”

Freshman guard Brett Kingma scored a game-high 23 points to lead the Timberwolves. Kingma also scored 33 points against Bellevue Christian.

“This tournament is really going to get us ready for the next round of league games,” Kingma said.

Jackson trailed 22-14 after the first quarter but bounced back in the second quarter and took a 34-30 lead on Kingma’s fourth 3-pointer of the first half at the buzzer.

The Wolfpack’s lead, however, quickly dissolved in the third quarter as Bothell went on a 15-3 run and finished the quarter ahead 47-39. At one point, Jackson went 4 minutes and 25 seconds without a field goal.

Unfortunately, such lapse aren’t new to the Timberwolves.

“That’s really been a problem with us,” Johnson said. “We have had some really, really bad quarters. If you look at our season we have a tendency to get outscored by big time margins in certain quarters.”

Part of the problem is that Jackson is a young team with no returning starters.

“We don’t yet know how to play with consistency,” Johnson said. “We have a tendency when some bad things start to happen to let them avalanche. So that was another example of that.”

Back-to-back baskets by Bothell’s Mike Moran and Ben Moschel extended the Cougars’ lead to 55-44 two minutes into the fourth quarter. But the Timberwolves started to slowly chip away at the deficit. A putback basket by Kingma pulled Jackson to within six points at 57-51.

A pair of free throws by Albert Horswill and a shot by Neddy Dirini boosted the Cougars’ lead to 61-51 with 2:05 left in the contest.

Jackson responded with two 3-pointers by junior forward David Sullivan, two free throws by Kingma and a steal and basket by Danny Oh to close to 63-61 with 54.1 seconds remaining. Dirini then blew an opportunity to pad the Bothell lead when he missed the front end of a one-and-one free throw.

Jackson cut the lead to 63-62 when junior forward Bryan Koch made one of two free throws. Sullivan then was whistled for an offensive foul, his fifth of the game. Dirini made one of two free throws to extend the Cougars’ advantage to 64-62 with 19.1 seconds left.

Kingma then had a solid look at a 3-point goal that would have given Jackson the lead but the shot misfired and Bothell rebounded the ball. Johnny Hekker was fouled and made both of his free throws to seal the Cougars’ victory,

Johnson was pleased at the way his team played in the fourth quarter.

“We had a chance to win,’ he said. “A couple of calls didn’t go our way at the end. … Brett certainly had a pretty good look to take the lead with the 3 in the corner.

“We had our chances. It was a good enough effort to beat a quality team and that was something we did not show in the first two games. That’s something to build on heating into these (league) games that count.”

Jackson hosts Kamiak at 7:30 p.m,, Friday, Jan. 4, and then travels to Shorewood for a 7:30 p.m,, Tuesday, Jan. 8 contest.

The biggest difference in the fourth quarter was Jackson’s intensity, Kingma said.

“We’re just beginning to find our identity,” he said. “We’re beginning to realize that we have to come out every game playing hard. … We realized that if we didn’t play hard then they would win easily and we wanted to win a game in this tournament, so we played as hard as we could in the fourth quarter.”

Koch finished with 12 points, while Sullivan had 10. Bothell was led by Hekker, who had 17 points, and Dirini and Albert Horswill, who each tallied 14 points.

Kingma scored 16 of his 23 points in the first half. He saw much more attention from the Bothell defenders in the second half. Jackson also turned the ball over 10 times in the second half.

Johnson viewed his team’s performance both as good and bad news.

“The good news is we did stop the bleeding and played better in the late third quarter and fourth quarter,” he said. “We didn’t roll over and die. … That’s the good news. The bad news is that we had another quarter where we got outplayed.”

Jackson opened league play with losses to Meadowdale and Mariner but beat Shorecrest and Lynnwood before the holiday break.

Kingma hopes Jackson will draw similar motivation from its losses at the tournament.

“We’re going to be hungry for wins,” he said. “These games are behind us. They’re non-league games. They matter, but they don’t matter as much as league games. … if in a week we have two victories, we’ll be sitting fine.”