Patriots top Bearcats in OT

Half-time adjustments, self-confidence and free-throw shooting.
Those items were all on the list of things the Patriots were thankful for Wednesday night.
The Jay County High School boys basketball team rallied from an 11-point deficit, forced overtime thanks to a shutout final period and hit free throws in the extra session to knock off the visiting Muncie Central Bearcats 43-40.
“I think it’s big for these kids because they’re young,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, whose team also went to overtime in last year’s season-opening win over Lakewood Park Christian. “There’s a lot of inexperience out there … When you win, you start believing.”
The Patriots (1-0) believed against Muncie Central despite trailing by 11 in the first half, nine at halftime and seven heading into the final period.
Still down by four late, two put-back baskets in the final 1:10 pulled the home team even. Jay Houck first got Jay County within two as he put back his own miss, and then Justin Dirksen tallied the tying points with 25 seconds left after grabbing the rebound when Zach Pryor’s driving shot was off the mark.
JCHS never trailed in overtime, and seniors Nick Clemens and Dirksen made four free throws in the final 15.6 seconds resulting in a three-point lead. Muncie Central had a chance to tie the game, but Joseph Morton’s fade-away 3-point attempt at the buzzer with Houck’s hand in his face was off course.
“Our kids, you could tell that the whole time they felt like they were going to win still,” said Teagle. “Even when we were down, they felt like that.”
The Patriots scored the first point Wednesday, but took nearly six minutes to make a field goal and trailed 10-3 at the end of the opening period. They were down by as many as 11 in the second quarter.
Two Houck free throws with 0.7 seconds left in the first half and an 8-0 run to open the third quarter closed the gap to one, but the Bearcats fought off the JCHS charge. A 3-pointer from Morton at the third-quarter buzzer had them back up 34-27.
But Central didn’t score again in regulation, and Kyler Carvel’s 3-pointer at the 5:44 mark of the fourth quarter pulled the Patriots to within four. Then the Houck and Adam Dirksen put-backs tied the game while Bearcats’ leading scorer Phillip Corthen twice missed the front end of one-and-one opportunities.
“It was one of those games that I feel like we could have held on but let slip away,” said first-year Central coach Jeff Holloway. “But at the same time, they played well. They executed. They stayed in. They fought, scrapped and they pulled it out.
“It’s a great one to start off with to show us where we are and where we need to go.”
Corthen built the first-half lead for the Bearcats almost single-handedly as he went 5-of-6 from 3-point range and scored all of his game-high 17 points before the break. But after going 6-of-11 as a team from long distance in the first half, Central was 2-of-7 in the second. And, it finished 0-of-7 from the free-throw line for the game.
The Bearcats played without Marcus Dukes and Donald Allen, who were both suspended because of violations of team rules.
“We had opportunities,” said Holloway. “We had the ball and the lead, opportunities to put it away at the line and we didn’t.
Meanwhile, Jay County shot 10-of-12 from the line for the game and 11-of-20 from the field in the second half. The Patriots were just 5-of-14 (36 percent) from the field and missed a variety of point-blank shots before the intermission.
JCHS’s effort inside was also key in the second half as Houck and Adam Dirksen reached double figures with 16 and 12 points respectively. They also combined for 16 rebounds and led the Patriots to a 14-7 advantage on the glass in the second half.
“We went in at halftime, talked about some things we needed to do better,” said Teagle. “And I thought, hats off to our kids, they executed everything we talked about at halftime.”

Junior varsity
Jay County was unable to overtime the Bearcats’ 21-point opening quarter as it fell 57-44.
Muncie Central built a 12-point lead in the opening period and extended it to 14 at the half. The Patriots closed the gap in the third quarter, but the Bearcats pulled away again for the double-digit win.
Kolby Mallory poured in 18 points, half of which came at the free-throw line, to lead Muncie Central. Jujuan Wells and Tyrek Vicks joined him in double figures with 15 and 12 points respectively.
Cole Stigleman and Justin Crouch each scored 11 points for JCHS. Ryan Burkett and Spencer Calvert added six points apiece.