Senior guard Keylin Vance came off the bench to score 35 points in the first three quarters as Jefferson, the top-ranked 6A team in the most recent OSAAtoday Coaches Poll, blew out co-No. 6 West Linn, 100-78, in the only Thursday quarterfinal at the Les Schwab Invitational to feature two Oregon teams.
Jefferson shot 51 percent for the game, out-rebounded the Lions, 47-38, and held a 21-8 advantage in assists.
“That was our best game of the year,” said Jefferson coach Pat Strickland. “The prior games we’ve been playing like one quarter of basketball, shooting bad, terrible defense…But our guys were pretty amped…cross-town rivalry, West Linn. This was definitely a game where we saw how we could play if we shared the ball and played defense.”
Playing for the first time since the 2016 6A semifinals, when West Linn edged the Democrats on its way to a fourth consecutive state title, the Lions were the hotter team early in the full-court contest. Strong shooting from Micah Garrett and Bryson Crockett put the Lions (4-4) on top quickly, 12-7, but Jeff used power from Lamar Washington and Kamron Robinson and deep shooting from Vance and Marcus Tsohonis to knot the score at 19-19 after one.
The Democrats blew the game open in the second quarter, outscoring West Linn, 30-16, by hitting their free throws and raining threes. Tsohonis, who finished with 23 points, had two triples and Vance scored 14 points, from long range and in close, in a dominant period for the perennial powers, who have won three state titles over the past six seasons.
Any notion that West Linn was going to make a game of it in the second half was quickly quashed by Vance’s deep three in the opening minute of the third quarter, which extended the Demos’ advantage to 15 points. Vance scored 14 points in the quarter to help Jeff take a 78-53 lead into the fourth.
“I expect him to have 40-point games this year,” Strickland said of Vance. “He’s a little microwave. He can shoot. He can get to the bucket.”
The only drama that remained in the final stanza was whether the Demos would hit the century mark. Two free throws from Jalen Brown with a minute remaining did the trick.
Garrett, a highly-regarded junior, had 26 points and nine rebounds to lead West Linn, which went 2-2 at a tournament in Hawaii last week. Another junior, Crockett, added 16 points and senior transfer Oreon Courtney chipped in with 14 for the Lions.
Jefferson, which also got 13 pounds, five rebounds and five assists from Robinson, its 6-8 sophomore big man, will take on top-seeded Sierra Canyon, which defeated Jesuit, 78-61, in another Thursday quarterfinal. The Jefferson/Sierra Canyon semifinal game tips tonight at 7:30 p.m. Strickland says that his team is capable of pulling the upset over the nation’s fourth-ranked team.
“We have to come out with energy and rebound and do the kind of things you have to do to win close games against good teams,” he said.
johnt@osaa.org
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