Washington completes comeback

WASHINGTON — Things were looking stark for the Washington boys basketball team on Tuesday night against Oskaloosa.

After trailing at the end of both the first and second quarter, the Demons put together some of their best basketball in the second half to pick up their first non-conference victory of the season, 54-43.

Early on, Washington showed signs of running away with game, as they jumped out to 5-0 and 10-3 leads with seven points coming from Ajay Six.

Things weren’t the same for the next quarter and a half.

Oskaloosa quickly made it a one point game, 10-9, off a pair of steals and a block.

After a timeout with 3:20 to go in the first, Washington scored three points off a trio of free throws, making it a 13-9 game. The Indians struck last though as a pair of threes in the final minute gave them their first lead of the game, 15-13.

Momentum stayed with Oskaloosa into the second quarter of play as they put in the first four points of the quarter, before the Demons Evan Van Der Molen got the Demons back on track with a pair of lay-ins, bringing the game back to two, 19-17.

Things got worse for Washington through the rest of the quarter as they wouldn’t score again for over four minutes up until the 1:37 mark.

“Our defense and our intensity was the difference,” Ethan Patterson said. “Our help side was killing us in the first half.”

During that time, the Indians rattled off a 13-0 run, pushing their lead to 32-17.

“Oskaloosa is very quick,” Washington head coach Collin Stark said. “The biggest thing is we were looking for calls that weren’t gonna be there and instead of using that as an excuse or crutch we just had to play through it. At that point we just had to take it personal.”

Ethan Patterson gave Washington some energy heading into the locker room as he put in four straight points in the final minute to make it a 32-21 ballgame at half.

Coming out of the locker room into the third quarter, it was a different Demon team.

In fact, it was all Washington in the third.

The Demons didn’t allow the Indians a bucket in the third period, taking the lead at the 1:06 mark, 33-32 off a pair of Ajay Six free throws. Washington took the quarter 15-0 and led 36-32 by the end of it.

“How they were playing that third quarter, the game plan was to have the least amount of stoppages as possible,” Stark said. “It’s almost like a train, we just needed to get it rolling and that ended up being the big difference in the game.”

Fouls played a big factor as Washington got 10 of the 15 points from the stripe.

“Our defense in general really stepped up,” Patterson said. “I’m proud of the way we responded. We weren’t going to back down and that shows what kind of team we are. We wont back down from anyone.”

The rest of the way out Washington never looked back and never let up. They opened the fourth with a 9-2 run to make it 45-34. Oskaloosa would make it an eight point game at 51-43, but Aden Six hit a trio of free throws to ice it.

Washington is now 3-2 overall and 2-0 in Southeast Conference play. The Demons will travel to Mt. Pleasant (3-2, 2-0) on Friday to face the Panthers in a game that will decided the top of the conference.