Franklin claws past Turlock in boys basketball
The Franklin Wildcats are one of the fortunate few basketball teams that can overcome a sluggish half and kick it into an exhausting gear.
But it doesn’t take a John Wooden or a Jesse Formaker to remind this terrifically talented bunch that subpar halves will at some point derail the train.
No. 2-seeded Franklin found its game and took apart a solid Turlock team, seeded seventh, 59-40 Friday in a Sac-Joaquin Section Division I quarterfinal in Elk Grove.
Formaker, the Wildcats’ coach known to raise his voice to vein-bulging fury, challenged his team at halftime of Tuesday’s opener against Pleasant Grove with this simple question: “Is this how we want to end the season?”
This time around, a hard stare did the trick, and the Wildcats found their pace. Which is to say, suffocate teams defensively and outrace them for loose balls, rebounds and to the rim.
Franklin (24-5) was too quick, too athletic, too good on the boards and with blocked shots and too determined to stall now, using a 28-5 run to stretch open a close game in winning its 14th consecutive contest.
“You spend the regular season teaching them, but when you get to the playoffs, they have to go out there and do it, and they did,” Formaker said.
Franklin advances to Arco Arena for the fourth time in five seasons. The Wildcats will take on Jesuit, no stranger to the Arco scene, in a Tuesday semifinal that presents a classic matchup between an achieving academic/athletic powerhouse public school against one that is the same for the private school sector in Jesuit.
The Marauders beat Burbank on Friday to advance, and they pounded Franklin in a season-opening foundation game that doesn’t go on the official record but surely sticks in the team’s psyche nonetheless.
Darin Johnson and Theo Johnson led Franklin with 20 and 16 points, respectively, scoring inside. Brothers Ike and Chuks Iroegbu combined for 15 points.
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