By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– The legs were tired. It was both teams, Woodburn’s and 6A Jefferson’s last game of the Capitol City Classic Monday morning and both squads were hungry for a victory having entered the game winless in the tournament.
The Bulldogs led by double-figures in the third quarter, only to see the Demo’s rally back and put the pressure on Woodburn to finish the job as the lead was down to two at 49-47 midway through the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs knew how tough their game with Churchill was, leading to only see the Lancers stun Woodburn late back on Friday.
“Our game with Churchill, it was a close game and we had a lead, but we couldn’t put them away. Today we were able to show that we could put teams away. This is a good trend for us,” said Esai Carraquillo. “We’re going to start doing better, fix those mistakes at practice…we’re going to keep trending up so we’re ready for league. We’re going to compete as hard as we can and at our best. It’s the Capitol City Classic, we’re here to have fun and play.”
The Bulldogs rebuilt a nine point lead with 2:10 remaining in the game, 55-47, Jefferson cut it down to 56-52 with 1:06 remaining in the game. Woodburn dug deep and were able to close out the victory this time around, their second victory and enternext Monday’s preseason finale at Ridgeview looking to extend this momentum into Mid-Willamette Conference play.
Cruz Veliz led the Bulldogs with 17 points, Anthony Figueredo and Carrauillo each scored nine in the victory Monday. And though a 1-4 performance in the CCC wasn’t their plan, the squad did have some positive takeaways that they can build upon moving forward.
“We learned a lot about each other as a team. Being able to finish off with a win is just huge for us, it gives us momentum going into our last non-league game and into league which is the most important thing,” said Veliz. “We’re a senior-heavy group, so we’ve been in these kind of moments. Late game obviously, we had a late game with Churchill that didn’t go our way, a couple bad tips here and there, but this game went our way and we’re just going to keep battling. We know we’re going to be in a lot of these games in league, there’s a lot of good teams there. So to get a few non-league games like that will be huge for us.”
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
