La Grande rallies to beat Baker boys

By GERRY STEELE

Baker City Herald

La Grande exploded for a 32-point fourth quarter Friday to come from behind and defeat Baker 62-58 in a Greater Oregon League boys basketball game at BHS.

Trailing 40-22 with 2:49 left in the third period, La Grande outscored Baker 40-18 the rest of the game to defeat the Bulldogs for the second time in the GOL season.

Baker coach Craig Woods could only shake his head after the game.

“We started to press,” he said. “We’d miss a shot and they’d come down and hit some shots. La Grande played a great game. They got things done,” Woods said. “We made some poor decisions. Things just didn’t happen.”

Baker rode nine points from B.J. Quintana to a 16-5 lead after one quarter.

The Bulldogs then increased their lead to 23-8 before La Grande’s Brad Townsend went wild.

Townsend connected on five three-point baskets in the second quarter to help La Grande pull with 28-22 at halftime.

“That was probably the bigger run of the two,” Woods said. “They got some momentum going in at halftime.

“We hold them to 30 points in the first three quarter, then give up 32 in the fourth,” Woods said, again shaking his head.

“We didn’t take care of the ball. La Grande became the aggressor in the fourth quarter.”

Baker scored the first 12 points of the second half, including five by Ty Everson off the bench, to build a 40-22 lead with 2:49 left in the period.

La Grande answered with a 13-0 run of its own to cut the deficit to 40-35 with 7:28 left in the game.

La Grande later added an 8-0 run to take a 50-48 lead with 3:03 left.

Derek Blankenship’s three-pointer gave Baker its final lead, 51-50, with 2:26 left.

Ryan Tooke then scored four points to spark a 6-0 La Grande spurt to put the game away.

La Grande’s Kevin Attila scored 16 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter. Tooke added eight points in the quarter.

Attila and Townsend each finished with 21 points for La Grande.

Quintana and Dekker Smith each tallied 12 points to lead Baker. Blankenship added 11.

La Grande    5    17    8               32 — 62

Baker    16    12    12               18 — 58

La Grande (62) — Miller, Attila 4 11-13 21, Nice 2 0-0 6, Yundt, Tooke 2 4-5 8, Mills, Chandler, Aldrich 2 2-3 6, Townsend 7 1-2 21. Totals 17 18-23 62.

Baker (58) — Brown 3 0-0 7, Everson 2 2-2 7, McEnroe, Richardson 3 0-0 9, Blankenship 3 2-2 11, Quintana 4 3-6 12, Smith 6 0-3 12. Totals 18 7-13 58.

Three-point goals — Attila 2, Nice 2, Townsend 6, Brown, Everson, Richardson 3, Blankenship 3, Quintana. Fouled out — none. Total fouls — La Grande 17, Baker 22. Technicals — none.