MURRIETA — It’s well-known throughout the Southwestern League that the Temecula Valley boys basketball team likes to play an up-tempo game. But this season, like the last one, the Golden Bears seem to struggle finding their speed and then staying on the throttle, and had a 12-10 record overall to show for it. Wednesday night, senior guard Taj Jackson mashed the accelerator from the opening tip, Temecula Valley raced to a 16-point lead after the first period, and the Golden Bears sped past Murrieta Valley 85-64 to take sole possession of first place in the tough Southwestern League. The Golden Bears, who improved to 4-1 in league, came into the contest averaging a sluggish 15.6 points in the first quarter. Jackson ignited the Golden Bears’ transition offense, pressing the attack and scoring nine points as Temecula Valley bolted to a 33-17 lead. “In racing, you need a pace car,” Temecula Valley coach James Profit said. “Taj is our pace car.” “We wanted to come out and make a statement early, let them know what we were doing and why, shooting well and pressing them early,” said Jackson, who finished with 16 points. “All week in practice we’ve been working on getting going early. Normally our first quarter has been slow and we pick it up in the second half. So we’ve been trying to pressure in the first quarter and starting hot, to get out and go, running.” Temecula Valley (13-10 overall) was locked in from distance in the first half, hitting nine 3-point shots on the way to a 53-31 lead at halftime. Golden Bears’ forward Jeremiah Profit led all scorers with 24 points, Liam Hodgkinson showed his ability to play in the paint and a nice shooting touch from the outside, scoring 16 points, including four 3-point buckets. Fabian Ruiz added a dozen points. Temecula Valley also applied the brakes to Murrieta Valley’s standout freshman Jaizahn Lewis, whose eight points were well below his nearly 21 points-per-game scoring average. “They understood we were playing for first place, and coach Profit did a helluva job having his team ready, and they were hitting on all cylinders,” said Nighthawks coach Brian Wethers, whose team slid to 14-9 overall and 3-2 in league. “They had more energy, more passion, more toughness, and that was glaring. They took advantage of our lack of toughness in a lot of areas. “They were hungry everywhere,” Wethers said. “Rebounds, transition, togetherness – they were just better at it. I have to give them credit, they were just far better today.” Justin Lara paced the Nighthawks with 15 points. Parker Steffen scored 14 points and Tony Rutledge added 10 points. James Profit said the Nighthawks’ recent history of success was motivation enough for his ballclub. Murrieta Valley had won eight of the last nine meetings since the 2020-21 season, including an 85-70 victory in the league finale last year to secure the Southwestern League crown. “We talked this week about how hard we’ve been playing and how hard we have not been playing. “And we made a vow that when we step on the floor we are going to play as hard as we possibly can,” Profit saud. “We talked about the mindset of winning, but not caring so much about winning as not losing. We’re playing to not lose the game. I think that breeds the mindset that you fight on every possession, because you never know if that will be your last possession. So we came out and we wanted to fight for something.” related_articles location=”left” show_article_date=”false” article_type=”automatic-primary-tag”] Wethers expects the Nighthawks to get back on track Friday, when they visit Great Oak to open the second half of league play. Temecula Valley plays at Vista Murrieta. “We’ve got to stay the course. The main thing to me is, be ready to play,” Wethers said. “The message I’m sending is, there are no more easy games, no more free games, and in this league, you’ve got to show up. If you don’t show up you get embarrassed at home, like we did tonight.”