Jay captures sectional

HUNTINGTON — When Garrett Krieg got the ball across the time line, he was serious — all business.
But as he dribbled, the final eight seconds ticking away, a small grin came across his face. That grin became a smile, which grew larger and larger until he flipped the ball to the referee when the clock hit zero.
While Jay County’s fans roared, Krieg hugged Kegan Comer as they and the rest of their Patriot teammates celebrated the school’s first Class 4A sectional title.
“It’s just an amazing feeling,” said Krieg after the Patriots’ 67-59 victory over the Fort Wayne South Side Archers in the Sectional 6 championship game at Huntington North. “I never thought this would ever happen.”
“That was amazing,” echoed Scott Schwieterman, who led JCHS with 18 points. “It was our goal coming in to win this, and it just felt amazing to pull it off.”
In its first seven years of Class 4A tournament play — 1998 through 2001, and 2008 through 2010 — Jay County had won just a single game. Now, with three wins this week, including an overtime thriller in comeback fashion over host Huntington North in the opening round, it will play in the regional for the fifth time since 2002.
“Our kids have grown immensely throughout the year,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, whose team has won seven straight, including five in a span of just eight days. “I’m so proud of them. They just kept getting more mentally tough. …
“It was a lot of fun.”
The Patriots (17-6) trailed just once — 2-0 — in their victory over South Side (6-16) and led by 11 at the half. But the Archers never went away, closing the gap to three points at the end of the third quarter.
Jay County responded with six straight points to start the fourth — four free throws from McFarland and two by Schwieterman — and the rest of the game was mostly a foul-shooting contest. With an 18-of-20 mark in the final period the Patriots stayed in front despite the best efforts of South Side star Rapheal Davis (35 points), and Schwieterman delivered the dagger when he scored on a long assist from Comer to give the Patriots a 10-point lead with less than 50 seconds to play.
Schwieterman, who has gotten better each game since returning from an IHSAA-imposed three-game suspension in January, shot 7-of-9, hit all of his four free-throw attempts and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds to lead the Patriots to a 29-18 advantage on the glass.
“Scott was great around the rim tonight,” said Teagle. “One of the biggest plays of the game was the long pass over the top when he got a lay-up. To me, that was probably the back-breaker for them.”
“They were all cheating up, so we kind of made eye contact,” said Schwieterman of the play. “(Comer) gave me a little nod and he just threw it down and I put it in.”
McFarland and Comer were outstanding from the foul line as they have been all season, shooting 10-of-11 and 6-of-8 respectively to follow Schwieterman with 16 points apiece.
After giving up the first hoop of the game, Jay County took control with a 7-0 spurt in the second quarter.
Krieg got the run going, and Houck added a 3-pointer off of an assist from McFarland. Then Schwieterman took another pass from McFarland (seven assists) and scored to push the JCHS lead to 21-10 midway through the period.
Jay County’s advantage remained 11 at halftime before the Archers used a 7-0 run in the third quarter to get back in the game. Davis scored off of a turnover at the end of the third to pull South Side to within three, but he got little help in the final period as the Patriots staved off the comeback attempt.
“They kept fighting right down to the end,” said McFarland. “We just had to stay mentally tough and keep playing through it.”
Davis scored 18 of his team’s 21 fourth-quarter points on the way to his game-high total. He went 21-of-24 from the foul line.
The Archers shot 39 percent from the field as a team, while Jay County went 18-of-31 for 58 percent after shooting 61 percent against Homestead in Friday’s semifinal win.
The Patriots, who won four Class 3A sectional titles from 2002 through 2007 and went to the 2006 state championship game, will meet tenth-ranked Kokomo (18-2) in the first of Saturday’s two regional semifinal games at Marion at 10 a.m. The Wildkats clobbered Logansport 92-57 to win their sectional title.
The other semifinal game will pit Pendleton Heights (19-5) against Northrop (17-6), and the winners will meet in the championship game Saturday at 8 p.m.
“It’s what you work for,” said senior Drew Houck of the sectional title and the opportunity to play for at the regional level. “Every day you come in to practice with this goal in mind. … We were kind of the underdog in everybody’s minds, I think even in Fort Wayne South’s minds, but we came out here, played hard for 32 minutes and executed, and we came out with the win.
“I think always in the back of our minds we had this dream, this vision. We kept at it. We had a lot of great coaching … to get us to this point. I don’t think there’s any way we would be here today at any other school.”[[In-content Ad]]