Things went from comfortable to dicey real fast for the Onalaska boys basketball team Tuesday, which saw a nine-point lead all but evaporate in a matter of 70 seconds, but the Loggers did just enough down the stretch to hold on for a 50-48 win over Winlock in a Central 2B League thriller.
“I think we should have done a better job of putting them away,” Onalaska coach Brent Wood said. “But games like that are important to win for the experience of those guys. We’re young, and they needed that.”
The Loggers (2-4, 1-2 C2BL) pushed their lead to 49-40 with 1:36 left on the clock when Blaze Underhill drilled a 3-pointer. From there, though, the Cardinals (1-4, 0-3 C2BL) went on a last, desperate run, with a Mason Ruiz jumper and two Lincoln Ruiz free throws making it a 49-44 game with 44 seconds left.
With 20 seconds left, the Cardinals forced a turnover in the backcourt and Landen Cline made it a three-point game, and after two missed Onalaska free throws at the other end, Cline drove to cut the deficit to 49-48. Winlock fouled once more and the Loggers split the ensuing free throws to leave the window open, but Cline’s attempt at the buzzer rimmed out, leaving the guests just that short.
“For the boys, the learning experience is that we’ve got to learn how to play hard like that all the time,” Winlock coach Rich Cline said.
The last mad rush flipped the trend of turnovers on its head; Onalaska forced 15 turnovers in the first three quarters, but Winlock forced seven from the Loggers in the final period.
“I’d like to see us settle down a bit more,” Wood said. “But we hadn’t been in positions like that a ton. We needed this experience to build on it.”
The game began as a defensive battle, with both the first and second quarters starting off at a slog of a pace and the Loggers going into halftime up 19-18.
But in the third quarter, Onalaska began to find some rhythm, and in a bit of a change of pace, it came from the perimeter.
Underhill, who logged just three points in the first half, put in 11 in the eight minutes of the third. He finished with 17 points to lead the Loggers on the night, and also had five rebounds.
“He came out and hit some big shots and got the offense going,” Wood said. “That’s a huge game for him, because we know he’s capable of doing that, and he just hadn’t done it yet.
Then, it was Underhill’s partner on the outside in Nick Rushton, who went on a 7-0 run of his own in a two-minute span to turn a one-point game into a bit more comfortable of a lead. An Underhill jumper immediately after that pushed Onalaska’s lead out, albeit briefly, to double digits.
“We’d been talking about the third quarter, because the past five games we’ve had crappy third quarters,” Wood said. “So we made a point of that today.”
Rushton finished with 16 points and five rebounds of his own. Down low, Justin Jacoby pitched in eight points, and led the Loggers on the glass with seven rebounds.
On the other side of things, Lincoln Ruiz poured in 17 points for the Cardinals, going 9 for 11 from the free-throw line, and also led them with seven rebounds — six of which came on the offensive glass.
“Lincoln, that’s the best I’ve seen him play all year, and I think a lot of it with him is confidence,” Rich Cline said. “You’ve got to have the confidence to be able to do that, and once you have the confidence, things will open up for you.”
Landen Cline had 14 points, and Freddy Patching had nine.
It’s the fifth straight game between the Cardinals and Loggers to be decided by eight points or fewer; four of those have been decided by either two points or one.
“I’m sure when we go back over there, it’s going to be a dogfight again,” Wood said.
That matchup will come in the final week of the regular season, on Jan. 30. More immediately, Winlock will host Adna on Thursday, while Onalaska will hit the road to Cathlamet to take on Wahkiakum.
