Olympia breaks away late to beat Auburn in 4A state opening round, 48-43
Every time Olympia 6-foot-9 center Jackson Grant, a UW commit, touched the ball against Auburn in the opening round of the Class 4A state tournament at the Tacoma Dome on Wednesday night, a swarm of defenders came to him. Double, triple teams — heck, even four defenders sometimes.
“I think there were six guys on him at one point,” Olympia coach John Kiley joked.
Such is life for the Olympia big man, who said he realized early on that it wasn’t going to be his most stellar night, in terms of statistics.
“I realized this might not be my night to go big and other guys are going to have to step up,” Grant said. “I’m totally comfortable doing that as long as we get the win. So helping other guys step up, doing my part on the defensive end and rebounds and blocking shots, that’s what I had to do and that’s what I did.”
Indeed, it was a total team effort for the Bears to knock off the Trojans, 48-43, to advance to the tournament quarterfinals Thursday against undefeated No. 1 seed Union, which beat Olympia recently in the West Central District III/Southwest bi-district tournament.
Olympia started slow, with Auburn taking a 23-18 lead into the half.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well in the first half, obviously,” Kiley said. “They sag on our big kid, so it makes it really hard for our big kid to get opportunities. So you have to hit shots. I thought Ethan Gahm did a great job. He kind of loosened us up, hit at least three 3’s. Then they kind of had to come out a little bit, that created a little more space, and Jackson kept working and Kai kept working.”
The game was tied 32-32 at the end of the third quarter, but Olympia outscored Auburn 16-11 in the fourth to seal that win, behind strong play from Grant, Ethan Gahm and Kai Johnson.
“We were just saying to get over the hump,” Grant said. “Earlier in the season, we had been having these games where we’re close in the fourth quarter bur kind of losing it after that, so we just needed to get that two point lead, pushing it to a four-point lead, six-point lead and keep getting stops.”
This is Olympia’s first trip to the state tournament since 2012. None of this year’s crop of seniors had experienced the Tacoma Dome before, and they didn’t want to be one-and-done.
“None of us seniors wanted to lose this,” Grant said. “It was our first time in the Dome for a lot of us in a while. So none of us wanted to come here and lose our first game. So that kind of heart and fire, we just knew we could beat that team.”
Grant scored 13 and racked up 13 rebounds, Ethan Gahm scored 14 and Kai Johnson scored 11. For Auburn, Tre Blassingame scored 15 points in the loss, Dae’Kwon Watson scored nine and Darrell Hester added six.
For Olympia, It sets up an intriguing rematch with Union, the tournament’s top seed. The Titans knocked off the Bears in the bi-district tournament, 70-57, on Feb. 14.
“I think we just need to be confident against them,” Grant said. “We came out kind of slow against them and still ended up losing by six or so before free throws. So I really feel like we can beat them if we play our best game. We just need to not make many mistakes. Play a solid game, slow the pace and capitalize on all the possessions.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 8:08 PM.
