Close games mark start of Jacks' season

Close games mark start of Jacks' season

Jan. 09, 2009

The Quincy High School boys basketball team could be 4-0 in Central Washington Athletic Conference play this season.

Or, as head coach Wade Petersen pointed out, "We could be 0-4."

That's how close the Jacks' four conference games have been so far. In each of their four CWAC games, the outcome has been decided in the final minutes of the fourth quarter — or the final seconds.

Three of their four league contests have been decided by a single point, and the fourth was decided by five points.

"I know what I get (from all these close games)," Petersen said. "Gray hairs."

Heading into tonight's home game against East Valley, the Jacks sit at 2-2, in a tightly bunched group with Ellensburg, Othello and Grandview and defending state champion Ephrata, one game behind Prosser, Toppenish and Wapato, which sit at the top with 3-1 records.

Petersen said he thinks the reason for the close games is because his team hasn't played as well as it's capable of.

"Depending on who we're playing is kind of how we play," he said. "We want to play at a high level no matter who our opponent is. Sometimes we're playing poorly and sometimes we're playing really well. For the most part, we're not reaching our full potential yet. We're not even close.

"I hope (we have the potential to make some of these games not as close). Some of these teams in our league are pretty good, so having close games can probably be expected. We can definitely play a lot better than we've been playing. Even against Cashmere (a game the Jacks won 71-62 on Jan. 5), we didn't play very well at all."

Quincy started its CWAC season on Dec. 11 with a 54-53 win over Selah, a game in which the Jacks escaped thanks to a tie-breaking free throw from senior forward Eric Martin with 0.8 seconds left.

On Dec. 19, the Jacks took an early lead on Prosser, but got outscored 16-11 in a pivotal third quarter and lost 48-43. The next night, they blew a double-digit first-half lead and fell to Toppenish 56-55 after the Wildcats' Patrick Peters sank a tie-breaking free throw with 26 seconds left.

On Jan. 3, Quincy scored six straight points in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter to force overtime against Grandview and saw Martin score all five of its points in the extra session, including a spinning layup with three seconds left for a 58-57 win.

"If you can execute and make a lot of good decisions under pressure, then you're usually going to come out on top," Petersen said. "The games that we've won, we've executed well. The games that we've lost, we haven't — somebody made a bad decision, or against Prosser, somebody didn't cover (his) area. It makes it hard to win if you don't make good decisions down the stretch, especially with less than a minute left when it's tied."

Coming into the season, Petersen figured one of his team's strengths would be veteran experience — his team features nine seniors, and two of them — Martin and post Jesse Gonzales — are four-year varsity players.

"They've played in these types of games before," Petersen said. "It doesn't overwhelm them. They're not surprised when they get in close games. They don't freak out and tighten up. They think, 'Well, we've done it before.' When we call a time out, the guys come over and they're not in panic mode. They say, 'Hey, the next possession, let's focus on what we can do next.' That's nice.

"We (say) to the kids that it's about one possession. If you approach the game at the beginning like that, then maybe it won't end up being (close). If you take every possession (with the mentality of) 'This is it, this is the one defensive stop that we have to get in order to win,' or 'This is the one (trip on) offense that we need to get a good shot,' you won't be saying, 'Man, we blew it early. We should have worked harder in the first quarter,' or whatever."

That experience has come in handy during the early stretch of close contests, but Martin said that sometimes the Jacks go into games almost too confident, which could be reason why some of the games have been as close as they have been.

"In the past, we've had real trouble finishing, closing teams out, stepping on their throat," Martin said. "This summer, we played a lot of really good teams and just blew them out because we knew they were good, and we played up to that level and beyond it. We were just able to put them out of the game, especially in the second half. This year, I don't know. For a while, we've just been having trouble finishing out the game. We definitely need to work on that.

"No, (we didn't expect to play a lot of close games), not at all. We actually have been expecting to blow teams out, and that's probably part of the reason why we haven't been doing that. We come in cocky and don't leave the game as expected."

Martin, the team's leading scorer at 17.5 points per game, is continuing to grow in his role of go-to player in the clutch — "It's a lot of pressure, but somebody has to do it," he said — as evidenced by his two game-winning shots this season. Petersen, for his part, has certainly shown that he's comfortable getting the ball into the hands of the 6-foot-3 returning all-leaguer.

"He's a really good free throw shooter, so you can't put him on the line," Petersen said. "He's tough inside and outside, so he's got the full package of ways he can score. But we've got a lot of guys who can step up and make the shot if we need one at the last second. It's just most of the stuff we've been using has gone to Eric at the end."

One good thing about playing close games now is that the experience will undoubtedly help the Jacks later in the season and the district tournament.

"Definitely (we've learned from playing a lot of close games), and that will definitely help us in the future," Martin said. "When we're playing games in districts or in games that really mean something, we're all fired up about them and we all have the experience to win them.

"(You have to have) trust in your teammates, trust that everyone's going to do their job, do what they're told and back you up. A lot of us, we tell each other, when we're playing those games, we don't even think we're going to lose. We know we're going to come through and win. We don't expect to lose at all. We know we're going to win. "

Tonight, the Jacks will host an East Valley team that is 0-4, but might be a bit better than its record indicates; the Red Devils have played in some close games, too — they've lost two games by three points each and none by double digits. The next night, Quincy travels to Othello to take on the Huskies.

"East Valley's playing better than I thought," Petersen said. "They haven't won yet, but they're playing a lot of close games. They're hanging tough. Othello is with us at 2-2. It's a good weekend for us. It'd be nice to sweep these teams and come out of the weekend 4-2."

They definitely have the potential to do that, and they'll gladly take two more one-point wins if that's what it takes.

"This week in practice, we've (been focusing on) intensity," Martin said. "We've really come a long way since our last two (league) games. Those were really disappointing games that we definitely should not have lost. We know that we can't have that kind of season. We've got all the seniors; it's definitely time to do something."

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COMMENTS

B13:

I agree with Coach Pete's assessment. This team is capable of playing much better basketball. There is good talent on this team. Hopefully they can get some good momentum going and start a run that will lead to something special.

parrish:

I saw the Jacks early season down here at the Toyota Center. The team has good overall talent and could shake it up a little bit in league play. With the senior leadership they must and will continue to need to look for mathups through the game. There were times when they side blinders on and were not seeing this offensivly. Defense has to continue to improve too. I agree Doug that if they turn up the D that will impact there easy points that they need off turn overs to beat some of the easier teams and not have so many close games

Jeremy McCreary:

I agree.... like the honesty....

This is a nice blog..... going to check it out more often.