I-Wil's continued dominance

Isaac is continuing his dominance. Here is bits of today's article on him and the Wildcats.

Wildcats cruise to sixth straight capped by upset
Wilsonville pulls off upset of the season with two-point win over Century last week, then roll over St. Helens
Wilsonville won its sixth consecutive game.

The chants from the student section toward Isaac Wilson started before the opening tip-off in Thursday's 84-47 win over St. Helens.

And why not?

With his classmates chanting his name, the Wilsonville junior ended a stellar week for the Wildcats, coming off a game-winning jumper last Tuesday over previously unbeaten Century in a 54-52 win at home.

“We’re just focusing on what coach wants us to focus on — playing good defense and trying hard every game,” Wilson said.

Against No. 3 Century, which entered the game 18-0 overall and 7-0 in the Northwest Oregon Conference, Wilsonville coach Chris Roche gave his starting point guard the opportunity to win the biggest game of the season in the final seconds.

“We just called an isolation play for me and I just took it left and knocked down the 15-footer,” said Wilson, who converted with five seconds left in the game. “It felt good, it felt great. We wanted to beat them.”

“We’re actually a pretty good team at the end of quarters,” Roche said. “And we work on it a lot. And Isaac, we wanted to get him the ball and isolate him and just let him make the decision. He’s probably the best decision-maker we’ve had maybe ever. He always is unselfish but he’s always willing to take the big shot.”

With Thursday’s win, Wilsonville has now won six games in a row after beginning the league season, 1-2. Since a home loss to Liberty on Jan. 18 - the first time the Falcons defeated Wilsonville in school history in boys basketball - the difference has been the team’s focus on the right things.

“We just started focusing up more and we weren’t focusing as much as we should have been at the start,” Wilson said. “After our Liberty loss, we realized we have to focus on the things that coach wanted us to do. We weren’t taking great shots and we weren’t playing defense.”

In the third, Wilsonville had a season-high 31 points on 9 of 11 shooting from the field (81.8 percent) and 13 of 15 from the free-throw line (86.7 percent).

“Thirty-one points in a quarter, last year we struggles to score that in a game,” Roche said, smiling. “So we have improved but I also know that if we don’t show up, there isn’t a team in our league that can’t beat us so we have to show up and play hard and be zeroed in on the right stuff.”

For the game, the Wildcats shot an impressive 75.6 percent from the field (34 of 45), while limiting the Lions to 42.2 percent (19 of 45).

“We took really good shots tonight and scored 84 points,” he said. “If we had taken more shots that were less quality, we would never have scored 84 points, so sometimes that takes awhile to learn that more shots doesn’t necessarily mean more points.”

Fritzler scored a game-high 26 points to lead five players in double figures for the Wildcats, who saw every player see time on the floor. Reserve Michael MacKelvie added 13 points, Wilson had 11, and Jon Adrian and Wardle each had 10.

Wilsonville (15-5 overall, 7-2 NWOC) sit in second in the conference just one game back of Century (19-1, 8-1) for a share of the league championship with five games remaining.

Way to go I-Wil, we are all cheering for you.