Backup Ryan Jackson gives Gonzaga Prep a second-half boost in first-round district win over Hanford; G-prep girls fall to Chiawana

Gonzaga Prep came into the boys District 8 4A tournament as the No. 1 seed. On Friday, in its first-round game against seventh-seeded Hanford, the Bullpups led the entire way but found themselves in an eight-point game midway through the third quarter.

Backup junior guard Ryan Jackson hit a big 3-pointer, senior forward Jamil Miller followed with a two-handed slam, and the rout was on.

Miller finished with 17 points to lead four in double figures, and Gonzaga Prep (19-3) topped the undersized Falcons (2-19) 74-49. Hanford had allowed 100 points or more twice this season and 80-plus five more times.

The Bullpups are used to getting everyone’s best game this time of year.

“It’s fun when everyone is trying to beat you,” Jackson said. “It makes the game harder. And I think we like that.”

Jackson ended up with nine points, all in the second half.

The Bullpups advance to a semifinal on Tuesday, when they will host fourth-seeded Kamiakin, a 60-49 winner over Central Valley.

“It was physical play, but it’s playoff basketball,” Gonzaga Prep coach Matty McIntyre said. “And we’re gonna learn from every single experience, so tonight will be another learning experience moving forward.”

“I felt like they were trying to disrupt me a little bit on the offense end,” Miller said. “But I tried to keep my composure and, you know, get my teammates involved.”

The Bullpups led 32-19 at halftime, using an 8-2 run late in the second half to gain the advantage.

“We talked about it at halftime, (Hanford’s) game plan was obviously to slow down the tempo of the game and use the shot clock down under five seconds almost every time so they limited the number of possessions,” McIntyre said. “It just became more of a matter of executing and being disciplined on both ends of the floor because the game had shrunk.”

Hanford came out energized in the third.

Senior Andrew Dearman scored eight points early in the quarter, most coming in the paint, to get the Falcons’ deficit to seven.

Jackson was inserted into the game and got open for a corner 3 for his first basket of the game.

“I just tried to bring energy off the bench, score when I need to,” Jackson said. “So yeah, it felt good to get some buckets.”

“He does so many things well that probably don’t show up in this in the scorebook or maybe get noticed to the average eye,” McIntyre said of Jackson. “But he’s a difference maker for us and we have a lot of confidence in him.”

The Bullpups created a turnover in the backcourt and Miller got loose for a two-handed slam. Jackson added a runner a few moments later and the Bullpups pushed the lead to 55-32 heading to the fourth.

“That was definitely the swing of the game,” Miller said. “Just keeping positive, sharing the ball, you know, giving the teammates claps. Everything, anything that can keep us up.”

“Once we got in the moment we got in a little bit of a rhythm,” McIntyre said. “We started creating offense through our defense, the energy picked up and we were a lot better.”

The Bullpups then scored the first 10 points of the fourth quarter to make it a 30-point game and McIntyre went to the bench.

Next up for the Bullpups is Kamiakin, which finished 16-5 this season.

“The margin of error gets less and less the further you go through these tournaments,” McIntyre said. “It’s at the end of the season and people are playing for the right to continue on, so we’ll see what happens.”

Girls

Chiawana 50, Gonzaga Prep 46: Sophomore Kaia Foster scored 16 points, including a pair of late 3-pointers, and the sixth-seeded Riverhawks (13-8) topped the third-seeded Bullpups (14-7) in a first-round game.

Chiawana plays at second-seeded Kamiakin in a semifinal while Gonzaga Prep hosts Pasco in a loser-out on Tuesday.

Taliah Lee led G-Prep with 16 points and Gillian Bears added 10.

Chiawana started the game on a 10-0 run.

“I’m super proud of how we battled back and kept battling,” Gonzaga Prep coach Geoff Arte said. “Playoff basketball, everybody’s good so we kind of dug ourselves in early hole. But we kept fighting back and getting it close.”

Gianna Medelez and Matty Woolf knocked down 3s at the start of the second to make it 21-12. G-Prep post Gillian Bears made a couple of baskets in the paint, and the Bullpups trailed 24-18 at the half.

“We were getting good shots, but they just weren’t going in and that happens sometimes,” Arte said of the first half. “I thought we did a really nice job of keeping them at 10 because it could have got out of hand pretty quick there.”

A driving layup by Olivia McIntyre made it a three-point game with three minutes left in the third. Foster scored a put-back then a pair of free throws and the Riverhawks led 34-28 entering the fourth quarter.

Rhyan Madden’s 3 early in the fourth made it a four-point game, but Foster’s back-to-back 3s pushed it to double digits with 2 minutes to go.

The Bullpups weren’t done. Lee hit a pair of 3s to get it back to three with 10.7 seconds remaining, but Foster hit both ends of a 1-and-1 to seal it.

“That’s the nice thing about this tournament, unlike some of the other ones, is we get another chance,” Arte said. “And I think you’ll see us fight until till that clock runs out.”