Turning up their defense in the fourth quarter and overtime, the Battle Ground Tigers rallied to defeat Camas on Wednesday. The victory earned a spot in the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League boys basketball district championship game.
Battle Ground (14-6, 7-3) will visit Union at 7 p.m. on Monday to play for the league’s No. 1 seed into the bi-district playoffs.
Camas (11-8, 4-6) will visit Evergreen at 7 p.m. on Monday to play a loser-out game.
Battle Ground outscored Camas 8-0 in overtime. All of the Tigers’ points in the extra session came on free throws.
Battle Ground’s Devon Johnson made two free throws and — after a go-ahead basket for Camas — Damien Ford converted a driving layup late in the fourth quarter to send the contest to overtime.
Camas outscored Battle Ground 21-9 in the third quarter to take a 41-35 lead. But the Papermakers managed to score only nine more points.
“They just punched us in the mouth in the third quarter,” Battle Ground coach Wes Armstrong said, noting that the Papermakers turned up their assertiveness and shot the ball well in that period.
Armstrong said he called a couple of timeouts to settle down the Tigers.
“We needed to get back to basics and fundamentals on defense, and we were able to do that,” Armstrong said. “And we were able to attack the basket on offense.”
Jamie Ford finished with a team-high 17 points for Battle Ground, but did not play down the stretch after aggravating a hand injury in the fourth quarter. Armstrong said Nate Moring did a good job filling in for Jamie Ford to finish the game.
Damien Ford added 15 points for the Tigers and Colby Cahoon scored 13. Devin Johnson had 11 rebounds for Battle Ground.
Jordan Anderson and Trevor Jasinsky each scored 17 points for Camas.
BATTLE GROUND 58, CAMAS 50 (OT)
CAMAS — Jake Hansel 3, Andre De Los Rios 3, Jordan Anderson 17, Kantas Zalpys 0, Brandon Nguyen 0, Jordan Lenard 6, James Price 0, Trevor Jasinsky 17, Nick Lopes 4. Totals 16 (8) 10-10 50.
BATTLE GROUND — Jamie Ford 17, Nate Moring 3, Damien Ford 15, Jeff Moran 0, Devin Johnson 8, Ben Nikolas 0, Josh Lemar 2, Colby Cahoon 13. Totals 18 (6) 16-18 58.
Camas 10 10 21 9 0–50
B. Ground 20 8 7 15 8–58
JV — Camas won. C — Camas won.
