UW signee Jackson Grant scores 32, Olympia runs away from Timberline in second half
Jackson Grant was a given.
The 6-foot-9 University of Washington signee has added 20 pounds of muscle since the end of the 2019-20 season 14 months ago.
Monday night at Olympia High School, Grant established position and showed a willingness to score over, around and through contact on his way to 32 points in a 99-60 nonleague win over Timberline.
“He’s six weeks away from going up to UW for summer and playing with their guys,” Olympia coach John Kiley said. “Anything weak, fading away, any shot taken from other than a strong base isn’t going to work. He’s doing a great job of always working to get better.”
Timberline coach Allen Thomas noticed.
“We tried to get physical with Jackson tonight. He proved why he is a legit McDonald’s All-American,” Thomas said. “We tried to throw a little bit of everything at him, a smaller strong post (Darrell Gipson), a bigger, strong, strong post (6-6, 350-pound Lysander Moeolo) and he handled it. He finished at the rim. He was solid.”
With Grant scoring 13 first quarter points, the Bears (2-0) built a 22-7 lead less than six minutes into the game. When Thomas called a timeout with 2:23 left in the opening quarter, the smaller, younger Blazers (1-1) seemed unlikely to rally.
But they did, putting together a painstaking 26-12 run to pare the margin to a single point, 34-33, with 2:34 left in the half. Timberline’s trio of underclass guards, sophomores Brooklyn Hicks and Myles Gurske, who led the Blazers with 14 points, and junior Tyler No, fueled the rally.
“I was really happy with that run,” Thomas said. “They could easily have given up. They were so excited about playing this game. It shows they have a lot of fight, but also that they have a lot of maturity to gain.”
Olympia showed it was far more than a one-man team to reassert control.
Parker Gerrits, who finished with 17 points, scored six in a 10-0 Bears run that gave the hosts an 11-point edge at intermission and the momentum they needed to pull away from Timberline in the second half.
“I trusted my game and trusted my teammates,” Gerrits said. “We’ve all worked, one through 15, to transform out bodies over this 14-month break. No matter who’s going into the lane, we think it’s the same person and trust them to finish.”
With Alfredo Ramirez-Cortez adding 15 points and Zack Swanson disrupting Timberline’s defense with decisive drives to the hoop, some from the length of the floor, Olympia steadily built it’s lead until the game was out of reach.
“We’ve been super intentional about building explosive strength,” Kiley said. “If that wasn’t on display tonight, I don’t know what was.”
Thomas was impressed with Swanson’s defense on Hicks, who scored 38 points last week against River Ridge but just 13 on Monday.
“He’s one of their unsung heroes. I thought he was fantastic,” Thomas said.
Kiley also believes his team is ahead of schedule — especially a good thing given the truncated length of this season.
“It felt really good to see us play this well in Game 2,” he said. “You don’t usually see it until later in the season. We played one way all night. When they made adjustments, we made adjustments,”
With a young team, Thomas has his sights set not only on the Class 3A South Sound Conference schedule, but the rapidly approaching 2021-22 season as well.
“Our focus and fundamentals on the road need to be a lot better,” he said. “I want to play on the road so we can face adversity and build character. This is the type of game you’re going to have to win if you’re going to go to state. Since no one is going to state this year, this is something we can build on.”