JCHS rolls to 3-0

Brad Horn's contribution Friday night came in the form of outstanding fourth-quarter defense and free-throw shooting. On Saturday, he found his outside shot.

Horn buried four 3-pointers, including daggers at the end of the second and third quarters, to lead the Jay County High School boys basketball team to a 43-31 victory over the visiting Blackford Bruins.

"He hit some nice shots," said JCHS coach Craig Teagle of Horn. "The threes at the end of the second and third quarters were huge. Because in the second quarter ... we went about five minutes without scoring. So for him to hit that three was huge."

The win completed another win for Jay County in the annual Cross County Classic as it won six out of the seven games. Blackford County's only win came as Hartford City knocked off the East Jay seventh graders.

The Patriots' scoring drought in the second quarter was more than six minutes following an 11-0 run that pushed their lead to double digits. However, their defense was up to the task, limiting Blackford to just a single second-quarter field goal. That left their lead at nine as they held the ball of the last shot of the half.

With about 10 seconds left Garrett Krieg dribbled to his right and then passed back to Horn coming around a double-screen at the top of the key. Horn buried his 3-point try with five seconds left in the half, ending a scoreless stretch of 6:20 and putting the Patriots up 19-7 at the half.

The Bruins (1-2) closed the gap with a 10-0 third quarter run, but again Horn was there with a big shot. JCHS ran the exact same play to close the period and Horn delivered again, this time with four seconds on the clock, to cap a 9-3 run.

Blackford coach Dave Marshall, in his first season with the team after coaching for a decade at Union City, called the end-of-quarter plays "killers".

"It's frustrating because of the things we tried to set up in practice to try to simulate that ... and it not happening under pressure," he said.

Prior to Horn's third-quarter 3-pointer the Patriots broke a three-and-a-half-minute scoreless drought by committing to going to the basket and drawing fouls. Eric Homan (13 points, eight rebounds) and Josh Beaty each got to the line and converted as JCHS hit 14 of its final 15 free-throw attempts, including 10 in the fourth quarter.

"We needed to (get to the foul line). We had the lead. We didn't want to shoot outside shots," said Teagle, whose team outscored Blackford 17-2 at the stripe. "We wanted to either get lay-ups or get fouled. Once you get the lead you want to be smart with the clock, and this group right now is really smart with the clock. They understand how to play and why they're playing that way."

The Bruins struggled to get to the line - their first free throws came with 16 seconds left in the game - or get any easy points inside.

"I guess we probably didn't attack as well as we have been," said Marshall. "I thought we became jump shooters. But we were having problems getting the ball to (Donnie) Strine down low."

Strine, a 6-foot-5-inch senior, had just six points and two rebounds while shooting 3-of-11 from the field. He had been averaging 20 points and seven rebounds.

Unlike the previous night against Bellmont when Teagle wanted his players to stay on the outside shooters, the game-plan against the Bruins was to keep the ball out of the post and swarm Strine when he did get the ball.

"We knew we had to make early contact, had to bump him out of his comfort zone," said Teagle. "We got that done most of the time, and then we did a pretty good job of covering him up. ... That's a pretty good job on him."

Krieg followed Horn and Homan with six points for Jay County and also had three assists. Beaty grabbed four rebounds.

Jared Coons totaled 10 points and three assists for the Bruins. Franklin Crist had seven boards.

Junior varsity

The Patriots opened a lead in the third quarter and defeated Blackford 35-28.

Kegan Comer scored 10 points to lead Jay County, which outscored the Bruins 12-5 in the third quarter. Drew Houck added eight points, and Scott Schwieterman finished with six.

Jordan Daily had 10 points for Blackford, and Andrew Mahan scored eight.

Freshman

JCHS shut out the Bruins in the second quarter and allowed no more than a field goal in the first, third and fourth in a 40-7 victory.

Tyler Back racked up 16 points for the Patriots, who outscored Blackford 11-0 in the second quarter and led 22-2 at halftime. Cade Price scored all of his 11 points in the first half.

Junior high

The West Jay eighth grade boys basketball team rolled out to a 17-point lead at the half in a 45-32 win over Montpelier, and the seventh graders improved to 5-1 with a 30-20 victory.

Kyle Selvey paced the Eagle eighth graders with 19 points. Toby McCallister added five points.

James Williams turned in a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds for the WJMS seventh grade squad.

Nate Brackman added five points.[[In-content Ad]]