Black Hills boys hit 10 second-half 3-pointers to pull away from crosstown rival Tumwater

Back in the warm days of summer, Black Hills High School boys basketball assistant coach Heidi Paschal didn’t like senior guard Jackson Bauer’s shot.

The two went to work breaking it down and rebuilding it.

Friday night, in the dead of winter with rain coming down hard outside, with the Tumwater half of a packed rivalry crowed rooting against him, Bauer made the work pay off, cashing in four 3-pointers in the third quarter as the Wolves pulled away from a tight three-point lead over the T-Birds at halftime to win, 72-61.

“I’ve got to give a shout out to coach Heidi for teaching me how to shoot,” Bauer said. “She corrected everything. She started all over.”

Bauer’s shots were the most dramatic as the flow of the game went unalterably Black Hills’ way once he got hot, but he wasn’t the only scorching shooter for the Wolves.

“The passes were coming in better, I was getting open looks,” he said.

Avery Armin led with a game-high 24 points, while Zach Crumley added 15 — all on 3-pointers — and Gabe Wright made it four Wolves in double figures with 10. Black Hills made a total of 10 3-pointers after halftime.

“We didn’t shoot the basketball well in the first half. We had a couple of opportunities at the rim that we didn’t finish,” Wolves’ coach Jeff Gallagher said. “In the second half, our shots started falling and we were able to get more from transition.”

“In the first half they came out with a lot of energy, and we weren’t hitting shots,” Bauer said. “In the second half we came out with more energy than they did.”

Gallagher counts on Black Hills to make its long range shots.

“It’s the way the game has evolved or devolved,” he said. “We’ve got some really good shooters who can knock down 3’s.”

Peyton Peterson led Tumwater with 14 points, and Damon Gaither added 11.

The victory gave the Wolves (8-6) a perfect run through the first half of the Class 2A Evergreen Conference season and a two-game lead over the T-Birds (5-10) and Aberdeen heading into the second round.

“If you’re going to have the opportunity to win a league title, you’ve got to sweep people,” said Gallagher, whose team was just 3-6 during preseason. “Our nonconference schedule did a good job of preparing us.”

Black Hills led 28-25 at halftime, but Crumley opened the third period with a triple from the left corner before Bauer went to work, scoring half the Wolves’ points in a 24-point quarter. Armin was also active during the run, with a pair of scoring drives and a 3-pointer to end the period.

The closest the T-Birds got in the fourth quarter was trailing 59-49 after Peterson hit a long two with a little under five minutes to go. But, Black Hills built its advantage back up, leading by as many as 17 when a fast break layup by Bauer off an in-bounds pass made it 72-55 with 1:43 to play.

Black Hills helped the T-Birds out in the closing moments, fouling four times. Tumwater converted 6 of 8 free throws in the final minute, six of them by Peterson.

INDIVIDUAL SCORING

B — Jackson Bauer 19, Avery Armin 24, Zach Crumley 15, Gabe Wright 10, Nic Bovenkamp 2.

T — Ethan Dillon 3, Peyton Peterson 14, Patrick Williams 4, Jaylen Clay 4, Gunnar Fields 4, Ryan Reed 4, Jelani Jones 4, Camden Oram 5, Damon Gaither 11, Luke Murphy 7, Kaden Lewis 1.