CHEHALIS – There are worse times than a district championship game to lose your shooting touch.
Elimination games, for instance.
Still, Friday was not the best time for the La Center Wildcats to be off target. Castle Rock stymied La Center’s high-paced offense and made all the big plays to win 45-28 in the Class 1A District 4 boys basketball championship game at W.F. West High School.
La Center will almost certainly shoot better than 2 for 22 from 3-point range in its state regional game next weekend, so all was not lost from the Wildcats’ perspective.
“We’ve just got to move on. This is one game. Our season’s not over. Have a good week of practice and prepare ourselves to win the next one,” said Will Rice, whose 12 points led La Center.
The Wildcats, whose game is built on high-tempo offense that includes shooting plenty of 3-pointers, missed their first 16 3-pointers on Friday. Early in the game it might have been a case of too much excitement, but the trend proved to be game-long.
“Just kind of one of those nights,” Rice said. “And they did a pretty good job, especially on me and Wyatt (Aguirre), of not letting us get the ball and disturbing us a little bit.”
La Center coach Jon Schroeder didn’t mind his team’s shot selection.
“We want guys taking the first open look they get that’s a clean one,” La Center coach Jon Schroeder said. “So I don’t fault them from a standpoint of our (cold) shooting. That’s going to happen from time to time.”
La Center (14-8) won both Trico League meetings with Castle Rock, 73-56 and 82-66. But this time the Wildcats offense never found its rhythm. Their only basket of the first quarter was an early put back. They were 0 for 12 on 3-pointers in the first half, falling behind 24-14 at halftime.
“To me it felt like we were down by a lot more than 10 points,” said Aguirre, who was held to only two points. “But we were never out of it until the last couple of minutes.”
That, Schroeder said, was testament to a solid defensive effort.
“The beauty of this is that we still get to go play next week,” Schroeder said. “If there’s a silver lining in the cloud, maybe it’s that this was the night that we picked to have an ugly offensive night, but a night that we showed ourselves that we can really pick it up on the defensive end.”
But this game was dictated by Castle Rock’s quickness. Castle Rock (15-6) was patient but aggressive on offense. And the Rockets used their quickness and assertiveness to work the offensive boards and further frustrate the struggling Wildcats.
“Victory favors the aggressor, and they were more aggressive in that (rebounding) department than we were,” Schroeder said.
And when the Rockets needed a big basket, they hit it. La Center scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter to claw to within seven points, but Brock Johnson buried two quick 3-pointers to take any momentum back for the Rockets.
Brock Johnson finished with 25 points. He hit six 3-pointers and also made three foul shots when fouled on a 3-point try.
But, ultimately, it came down to La Center missing the open shots when it had them and to Castle Rock limiting second chances and easy looks near the basket.
CASTLE ROCK 45, LA CENTER 28
CASTLE ROCK (15-6) — Ty Johnson 8, Taite Kleine 0, Brock Johnson 25, Mason Klingberg 8, Kyle Koopman 0, Nick Proudfit 4, Dakota Golden 0. Totals 14-43 (7-19) 10-11 45.
LA CENTER (14-8) — Chase Davison 5, Will Rice 12 , Wyatt Aguirre 2, Max Hiller 2, Jake Wise 0, Brody Seter 5, Dalton Morgan 2, Sayer Bierscheid 0. Totals 10-43 (2-22) 6-9 28.
Castle Rock 7 17 11 10–45
La Center 2 12 7 7–28
