Ryan Johnson has a perfectly good explanation for what drives the Mountain View boys basketball team this season.
“We just want people to know we’re a good team,” he said. “If we play intense, we can hang with the best of them.”
For the second time in six days, the Thunder beat a first-place team in the Class 3A Greater St. Helens League.
Zach Torson scored 21 points and had a hand in just about every fourth-quarter point Friday night, and Johnson added 17 points as the Thunder rallied for a 65-58 home victory over the Camas Papermakers.
Mountain View (6-7, 3-3 GSHL) beat Hudson’s Bay on Jan. 8, handing the Eagles their first league loss. Now the Eagles (5-1) are back in first place with Camas (9-4, 4-2) losing.
“We seem to come out with a different mindset against those good teams,” Torson said. “We need to do that with everybody, though.”
Mountain View coach Nate DuChesne agreed.
“We’ve got to learn to play with energy for 32 minutes, no matter who we’re playing,” he said. “Tonight, for the most part, we played hard.”
Especially in the second half, after Camas used an 18-0 run in the second quarter to take a nine-point lead.
Mountain View responded with a 14-0 run in a four-minute stretch that ended the third quarter and carried over into the fourth.
Torson had seven points and four assists in the final quarter. Johnson was the recipient of three of the sweet feeds for lay-ups.
Later, Torson broke the Camas press and found Shane McCauley for an easy two in the game’s final minute, giving the Thunder a 63-55 lead.
Torson made two 3-pointers and scored 10 points in the first quarter, which brought a lot of defensive attention his way the rest of the night.
“When they’re coming at me, it leaves other guys open,” Torson said. “I try to get other guys the ball.”
Johnson likes the set-up, especially when it works like it did Friday.
“You got a shooter and you got a good inside player like me who can finish,” said Johnson, who also had eight rebounds and five steals. “People have to respect both of us. When they don’t, we can make them pay.”
Still, the fourth-quarter performances from the Thunder would not have happened without work on the defensive end of the floor in the third quarter.
Mountain View was reeling going into halftime. The Thunder had scored the first and last field goals of the second quarter, but Camas had rolled off 18 consecutive points in between those scores.
“Coach got on us about defense,” Torson said. “He said defense would lead to offense, defense would lead to easy hoops.”
Mountain View held Camas to 11 points in the third quarter.
“We felt we were getting good shots. We just needed to get stops,” DuChesne said. “When you’re down nine points, you can’t trade baskets.”
Jacob Kaler led Camas with 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting. He had seven points in that 18-0 run. Bryan Butler and Michael Neff each added 11 points, and Marc Eppinger had a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Camas was playing without Addison Owen, who was on a recruiting trip for football.
Josh Parker added 13 points for the Thunder. He was 7 of 9 from the line.
