Regional reprise

Editor’s note: Over the last few months, we have run brief looks back at the 2005-06 season that the Jay County High School boys basketball team capped with a run to the Class 3A state championship game. Those culminated with a recap of the sectional final last week. This week we’re offering an abbreviated version of the March 13, 2006, story about the team’s regional championship win.

HARTFORD CITY — With a fling of the wrist, Randy Evans sent the basketball hurtling straight up into the air. Before it returned to the floor, he and his teammates officially became the best Jay County High School has ever seen.
“It’s undescribable to do this,” said junior point guard Scott Bruggeman, standing amidst the mass of fans that had swarmed the floor. “It’s just amazing, the best feeling in the world.”
Zac Green, Corey Comer, Tyler Rigby, John Retter, Clint Muhlenkamp, Luke Goetz, Evans and Bruggeman made the feeling happen, giving Jay County its first regional boys basketball title in school history 69-61 over the No. 6 Wawasee Warriors.
The fifth tournament win at Blackford this season — it followed a 63-57 semifinal victory over Tippecanoe Valley earlier in the day — left this group of Patriots standing alone.
Their 19 wins are the most by any JCHS team. While previous county schools — Portland in 1946 and ’48 — won regionals, those came in the single-class system and meant a berth in the final 16.
This victory put the 2006 squad in the state’s final four and two wins away from a state title.
“This is amazing,” said Green, one of the team’s four seniors. “It’s what we’ve been dreaming of since we were little kids.”
The victory was a testament to the never-say-die attitude.
For the first time in this year’s tournament Jay County wasn’t in control in the second half. It trailed by as many as nine points three minutes after the intermission, and was still down by six at the quarter break.
A 3-pointer by Evans to open the fourth quarter cut the deficit to three points only to have Michael Conrad of the Warriors (20-5) answer immediately with one of the triples that seemed to come so easily for his team. But Conrad’s was the last of Wawasee’s nine long balls, and Evans and the Patriots were just getting started.
Jay County (19-6) moved to within a point at 51-50, then Evans grabbed the lead with another 3-pointer. Brandon Geiger pulled his team even momentarily, only to have Evans score the next four points in a row. Goetz completed a 14-2 Patriot run with a back-cut to the basket where he took a great pass from Retter for a 59-53 lead.
“I think we wanted it bad enough,” said Bruggeman, “and we believed that it could happen.”
“When you play with poise, you get wins,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle. “And that’s what they did. They just played with a lot of composure and a lot of poise.
“This is a team that never panics, always plays with poise. You can look at them out on the floor. They never put their heads down.”
Wawasee got within a couple of points twice but never closer, as Jay County continued a dynamite day from the foul line.
The Patriots hit their final 10 free throws, including eight from Bruggeman in the final 1:08, and the game was over when a Joe Leach pass went between Geiger’s legs and out of bounds with 20 seconds to go.
The resurgence of Evans keyed the Jay County rally, and had to catch the Warriors a bit off guard.
The senior had been one of the Patriots’ main weapons earlier in the season, one of four on the team to score at least 20 points in a game. But in four previous tournament games he had had no more than three points, and had shot the ball fewer than 10 times in all.
With his career on the line though, Jay County fans were treated to the Evans of old. He pulled the trigger on five three pointers, hitting three of them, and scored eight of his 13 points in the fourth quarter.
“He played awesome,” said Teagle. “He didn’t get as much playing time probably in the afternoon game because Zac was playing so well. But tonight he had fresh legs.
“We have a lot of confidence in Randy Evans. He can shoot the heck out of it. He came in and hit some big shots for us.”
“I thought, ya know, maybe this would be the last I’m going to play, so I thought, well, hell, let’s go out there and shoot the ball,” Evans said. “And that’s what I did. And they went in, so hey, it’s good.”

A ton of shots went in for the Patriots — from the field and from the foul line.
There were hardly any rebounds to be had in the game as both teams shot better than 50 percent from the field, with Jay County going 20-of-35 for 57 percent. And throughout the regional day, the team was outright unconscious from the foul line.
After shooting 68-percent during the regular season they went 50-of-59 (85 percent) in the regional tournament, including 22-of-27 in the championship. Nineteen of the 50 makes came from Bruggeman.
What was zooming through his mind while shooting all of those foul shots?
“To make school history,” said the junior, who led the scoring effort with 18 points. “Our seniors did a heck of a job, and they deserved it.”
Evans’ 13 points followed Bruggeman, Corey Comer had 11, including the final two free throws, and Retter scored 10.
Wawasee also put four players in double figures, led by Conrad with 21 points and Andrew Mock with 17. All but two of the Warrior points came from that pair and Joe Leach (11) and Brandon Geiger (10), and Jay County’s eight-man rotation wore them down.
Mock and Conrad combined to shoot 6-of-9 from 3-point range in the first half, but the Warriors lead was hacked in half when Corey Comer’s 3-point bomb fell in at the buzzer. Wawasee pushed ahead its nine-point lead only to have its long-distance shooting fizzle to 3-of-13 in the second half as the Patriots swiped the title from the defending champions.