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Jampsa’s jumper lifts Underwood past Ashby
Published 1:24pm Saturday, January 16, 2010ASHBY — Dalton Jampsa tipped away a pass from Ashby guard Jordan Lillemon intended for Riley Mickelson, outraced everyone up court and instead of going up for an easy lay-up to put his Rockets up two inside three minutes to play in the first half, Jampsa attempted to gain the lead and the momentum with a one-handed jam.
It didn’t happen the way Jampsa envisioned it, bouncing off the front of the rim and eventually landing out of bounds. The play would be chalked up in the stat book as a missed field goal and Underwood turnover.
One thing the rim enforced block didn’t do is diminish Jampsa’s confidence as he would later make up for it in the biggest of ways, knocking down an improbable off-balance 3-pointer with a hand in his face at the buzzer to lift the Underwood boys basketball team to a 51-49 victory over rival Ashby Friday night at the C.E. “Cliff” Bertram Gymnasium in a Little Eight Conference showdown.
“I really didn’t want to lose this game, we weren’t going to lose tonight,” Jampsa said afterwards as he tried to catch his breath. “We put the ball on the floor and I saw the clock and knew I had to shot. It looked good as soon as I let go of it.”
A close ending didn’t seem realistic eight minutes into the second half. Underwood came out of the locker rooms and opened on a 13-1 run to make the 23-23 halftime score seem like a distant memory.
The Arrows didn’t record their first field goal in the second half until 8 minutes, 32 seconds had burned off the clock.
“The whole game it could have gone either way,” Ashby coach Ryan Risbrudt said. “We started out way too slow in the second half, one point in the first eight minutes of a half is never going to do you any good. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot with that kind of start to the second half.”
The Rockets’ lead reached double-digits after a Brandon Teberg long ball from the top of the key made it 41-31 with 6:33 remaining.
One minuts and 21 seconds later, the Ashby deficit was cut to just one at 41-40 with nine straight points by the Arrows capped by a Lillemon 3-pointer.
Down by three, the Arrows called timeout after they gained possession with 28 seconds to play.
“I told them (the Arrows) that we just need to get a good shot off whether it’s a two-pointer or a three-pointer, we don’t need to force a three,” Risbrudt said of his timeout speech. “Take the basket that we can get and foul.”
The strategy worked wonders for the Arrows. Tanner Langlie’s inside jumped with 18 seconds left and Ashby’s intentional foul on Jampsa with 17 seconds showing the Arrows hope.
Jampsa did his part by missing the one-and-one free throw attempt and 11.9 seconds later the crowd erupted inside the C.E. “Cliff” Bertram Gymnasium after Justice Witt’s right-handed runner dropped through the nylon to give Ashby its first lead since the 2:26 mark in the first half.
“I said: ‘Hey, we’re okay, we’ve got a lot of time left,’” Underwood coach Curt Olson said has he described the final huddle of the game with 5.2 seconds to play. “We drew up a little way to get the ball inbounds, got it to one of our options and Dalton made a heck of a shot.”
Brandon Masloski’s running start on the baseline enabled him to get a floating pass just past half court and into the hands of the 6-foot-4 Jampsa to set up the clutch three from the right wing and leave the Ashby audience stunned.
“Coach just said we weren’t going to lose this game,” Jampsa said of Olson’s final words before taking the floor for the last play. “We’ve been up the whole second half and we just weren’t goihe hands of the 6-foot-4 Jampsa to set up the clutch three from the right wing anng to lose.
Ashby started the first half quickly on the offensive end and held a 7-3 advantage four minutes into the game. However, the Rockets came right back with an 11-5 run to capture their first lead of the game. The first half saw four lead changes and four ties.
“We got into a little losing streak after Christmas and I thought our kids came out tonight and played their tails off,” Olson said. “They worked hard offensively, they worked hard defensively. We were diving on the ground for loose balls. It was fun to see them back playing like that again.”
Jampsa’s only real problem on the offensive end had to deal with shooting around the 6-foot-10 frame of Ashby’s Mickelson.
“I tried to jump and fade away from him to try and get him into foul trouble,” Jampsa said of his lengthy counterpart.
Jampsa ended the night leading all scorers with 31 points and 15 rebounds. No other Rockets’ player finished in double-figures.
Mickelson finished will 18 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks while Lillemon collected 14 points, eight rebound and three assists.
“He’s starting to become the big guy down low that we need,” Risbrudt said of Mickelson. “He’s improving with each game and I’m impressed with how he’s moving his feet.
The Rockets shot 39 percent from the field compared to 37 percent by the Arrows.
Five of the 22 Ashby turnovers came from trying to force the ball inside to Mickelson, whether it was the ball landing out of play or an Underwood defender picking it off.
The Rockets (5-7, 3-3) will look to keep things rolling in a non-conference matchup with Bertha-Hewitt on the road Tuesday. The Bears have only suffered a loss once this season, a three point loss to No. 10 ranked (1-A) Upsala. The Arrows (3-6, 2-3) will also be back on the hardwood Tuesday night with a non-conference clash with West Central Area. The 6-10 Mickelson will go head-to-head with Knights’ 6-foot-5 swingman Sam Richards.
