ROCHESTER —- Sixteen minutes into its matchup against Rochester, the Centralia boys basketball team was down a dozen and scrambling for answers.
Sixteen minutes later, Von Wasson hit the game-winner with 3.4 seconds to play, the final touch on the Tigers’ 43-41 comeback victory that snapped a six-game losing streak.
“I thought the guys did a good job gutting it out after a very poor start,” Centralia coach Kyle Donahue said. “It really was a tale of two halves for us.”
The second half was much kinder to the Tigers (4-12, 2-6 2A EvCo), who erased their deficit with a 12-0 run to start the third quarter.
While the offense started scoring with ease, the defense clamped down, holding a Rochester offense that scored 27 points in the first half to just two points in the third quarter.
“We just were not moving, we were not anticipating, and we were just kind of chasing in the first half,” Donahue said. “We talked about cleaning it up, moving, and putting out a little more effort … We did a better job adjusting defensively.”
Early in the fourth, the Warriors (2-13, 0-7 2A EvCo) were down by as much as six points, but a pair of free throws from Brayden O’Connor and a three from Kole Smith brought them back within one.
Over the next three minutes, neither team seized control of the game, as they instead took turns turning the ball over back and forth while only scoring two points each.
With just under 30 seconds remaining, Ethan Rodriguez gave the Warriors a 41-40 lead with a layup.
After Brady Sprague split a pair of free throws on the other end to tie the game, Rochester had the ball with a chance to hold until the final shot. They never got the shot off, however, as a double-dribble with 13 seconds left handed the ball back to the Tigers.
“I think this is a good learning point,” Rochester coach Darrel Robello said. “We need to be in these close games and learn from the mistakes we made at the end … We’ll turn the corner and get over the hump. We’ll turn these close losses into some wins.”
On the Tigers’ final possession, the drawn up play wasn’t to get the ball inbounded to Wasson, but he got open, and when he drove to his left, Donahue decided it was best to leave it in his hands.
“I was about ready to call a timeout,” Donahue said. “But I thought Von had a pretty good lane to the bucket and let him go with it. Von did a good job finishing. Sometimes you just gotta let guys play basketball, and that’s what Von did right there.”
The final bucket brought Wasson up to eight points on the day, second to Landen Jenkins, who tallied 14. O’Connor led the Warriors with 11, while Riccardo Bruttini added nine.
Both teams are off until Wednesday, when the Tigers return home to host the league-leading Tumwater Thunderbirds, while the Warriors will head west to take on Aberdeen.
