Oakwood concluded its non-league schedule with a 58-45 win over Marina that was closer than the score indicated.
Both sides battled for all four quarters, both sides pressed for most of the game and both sides did battle in the paint to pull down precious rebounds.
Even with less than 1:30 to play and trailing by 12, Marina (1-9) was fighting to force turnovers and had decent looks at some shots to cut into the Oakwood (9-2) lead.
The Hawks committed eight turnovers in the fourth quarter alone, but still held Marina to nine points in the frame.
Point guard Youssef Eshra is battling a foot injury and No. 2 guard Nate Schilling was not 100 percent either. That forced some of the bench players to have to play extra minutes, battling against a full court press that they don’t typically see in middle school basketball.
Coach Kort Jensen made sure his boys were in good position to contest shots, utilizing a trap game that forced Marina to make long, cross-court passes.
Marina’s team scoring leader Issaiah Santos torched Oakwood in the first quarter, putting up eight points. However, when Jensen adjusted his defense — and after Santos’ coach sat him late in the first quarter through the middle of the second for “playing selfish”— Santos was held to seven points for the rest of the game.
“First half, we tried to just play what’s called midline help, where we defended (one-on-one), but we brought someone from the weak side to stop his penetration,” Jensen said. “But because we were out of sync with that, in the second half we went to a trap, where anytime they threw the ball to the guy in the corner, we sent two guys so he couldn’t get the ball back.”
No one else on Marina’s team had more than nine points.
Jensen also had a key weapon back in his arsenal. Big man Zac Jenkins returned from a transfer sit out period with 11 points and six rebounds.
“Zac is very physical, very physical. He can stand in and block, he can rebound, but the two kids (Jenkins and Justin Mortensen) have to learn to play together. In practice they play against each other,” Jensen said.
Jensen said the defensive rotations were a little off, but the boys were able to make adjustments to keep Marina off balance.
“If everybody rotates around one spot, the guy who typically ends up shooting is the guy you want to shoot and he is typically shooting so fast, that it’s a bad shot,” Jensen said. “So that really played into our hands.”
Jenkins scored the team’s first four points and saw five of his points come from the free throw line, hitting five of six attempts.
His presence was obvious in the first half, when he pulled down four boards in the first quarter and provided help for Mortensen, who has played center for the previous month.
Mortensen, meanwhile, pulled down 15 boards, including 10 in the second half after being challenged by his coach at half time.
“Live a loving dad, sometimes you have to get onto your kids, and I made it very clear to him that in the third quarter, if he did not have seven rebounds in one quarter — and that’s a lot — and to make it harder, I told big Zak Jenkins to not let him have any, I’m going to sit you,” Jensen said.
Mortensen was not alone in the coach’s challenge at the break.
The entire team caught an earful during a time out in the first half and heard more of it at the half.
“I think that our kids came out over confident today. You’re not going to beat a school of 1,500 kids thinking you’re going to blow everyone off the floor,” Jensen said. “At half time I told them very clearly, ‘If you don’t play hard, I will sit you. You know I will sit you for the entire game.’”
The results were immediate.
Not only did Mortensen have an explosive half pulling balls off the glass, his teammates answered the coach’s call as well.
Oakwood shutdown Marina’s shooters to the tune of eight points in the third quarter, while starting the second half off on a 10-2 scoring run.
Marina didn’t score its first basket until the 4:39 mark of the third quarter and by then Oakwood had a lead it would never relinquish.
Jinkens hit four free throws while Youssef Eshra threw down five points of his own in the 16-point quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Jinkens finally missed a free throw, but saw Mortensen hit a pair of buckets to finish with eight. Nate Schilling added three of his own to finish with nine.
Jonathan Angulo added seven points and nine boards in a solid night.
Oakwood will now kick off Coastal Athletic League play 7 p.m. Wednesday against Pacific Collegiate at home.
