JCHS shuts down Bruins

The Patriot student section’s theme Saturday was “Silent Night.”
The group waited to cheer until its team scored its 10th point.
Had Blackford fans been following the same criteria, they would not have made a peep until almost the end of the third quarter.
Jay County held the visiting Bruins scoreless in the first period Saturday and set a school record for points allowed in a game in a 51-15 victory.
“It means a lot to us,” said Trey Teagle, a sophomore guard and the son of JCHS coach Craig Teagle. “It feels really good … We prepared well all week. My dad kept telling us to play good defense, and that’s what we did.”
“Good” is a bit of an understatment in describing the JCHS defense, both Saturday night and for the season as a whole.
The Patriots (11-2) held Blackford (4-8) without a point Saturday until Kalup George hit a 15-foot jumper from the left wing at the 5:16 mark of the second quarter. The Bruins finished the first half with four points, and didn’t get their 10th point until Evan VanGordon scored with just 58 seconds to go in the third period.
JCHS, which has won 15 straight over Blackford, limited the visitors to just 7-of-22 (32 percent) shooting from the field as they broke the mark set in a 53-19 victory over Union in the opening round of the 1983 sectional tournament.
“We don’t go in thinking about that,” said Craig Teagle of the record that his team had tied earlier this season in a win over South Adams, “but boy we were pretty solid defensively. …  I thought our switching was pretty good. I thought we communicated pretty well.
“I thought what we did was we really talked about where (Trace) Oswalt likes that ball, what (Blake) Thiery likes to do, where George wants the ball. And I thought we did a good job taking them away from those areas which took them out of their comfort zone which helped us defend them.”
The record performance dropped the Patriots’ state-leading defensive average to 34.08 points per game. The second-best team in the state is Barr-Reeve at 37.9, and the second-best Class 4A team is Valparaiso at 43.7.JCHS is on pace to obliterate the school record it set when they allowed an average of 41.2 points per game last season.
“We knew we were pretty close in that South Adams game, and we’ve wanted that record forever,” said junior forward Tyler Back (six rebounds), noting that defense is a point of pride for the team. “It’s obviously a major record and defense, it’s what we practice every single day.”
Jay County led 12-0 when Kegan Comer hit a lay-up at the first-quarter buzzer, and had as many points as the Bruins would get in the entire game after a Comer 3-pointer at the 5:52 mark of the third quarter. It had a 22-point lead at the half and added a 12-0 run in the third quarter.
Blackford, which had won three in a row, scored its final points midway through the fourth quarter, and the Patriots controlled the ball for more than two minutes to close out their record-setting performance.
Brock McFarland and Comer each scored as many points as the entire Bruin squad, finishing with 15 apiece to lead JCHS. They led another efficient offensive effort as the Patriots shot 22-of-34 (65 percent) from the field.
“They’re good when they’re out there and they’re active and they get in transition,” said Teagle. “‘We’re (shooting) 55 percent for the year, which is really good for a high school basketball team. A lot of that is because we get good shots. … And we have pretty good shooters too. … We don’t force a lot of threes. ... They’re usually good looks with our feet set.”
Oswalt’s four points were a team-best for Blackford.

Junior varsity
Jay County fell behind by four at the half and could not recover in a 34-29 loss to the Bruins.
Darren Bogenshutz hit a couple of 3-pointers and scored seven points to lead the Patriots, who closed to within a point in the fourth quarter but were never able to pull even. Zane Shreve and Jacob Schlosser each chipped in five points.
Hunter Tobey finished with nine points to pace Blackford. Tryse Hendricks added seven.[[In-content Ad]]