JCHS falls at Norwell

OSSIAN — The Patriots kept pressure on the home team on its senior night. They just could never quite get control of the game.

Jay County High School’s boys basketball team had its six-game winning streak snapped Friday as it fell 55-50 to the host Norwell Knights.

“We would tie it up or come within one, and then the next thing you know we’re down by six,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg, whose team had not lost since falling 45-36 Jan. 13 to Heritage in the Allen County Athletic Conference tournament championship game. “When you come up north, it’s a very physical basketball game. And the mental side of it affected some of our kids. …

“But we battled, we fought … we just couldn’t get over the hump.”

Jay County (13-7) fell behind early, and a tip-in by Brandon Nicholson at the first-quarter buzzer gave the Knights (12-9) a 17-14 lead. The advantage remained four points at halftime and again at the end of the third quarter.

A quick six-point spurt by Norwell — the home team converted an old-fashioned 3-point play, and then a Patriot turnover led to a 3-pointer — extended its lead to double figures in the fourth quarter.

A Cole Stigleman 3-pointer with about 10 seconds to go closed the gap to three points, but the Knights converted a pair of free throws in the final moments for the five-point margin.

Sophomore post player Will Geiger’s 20 points paced Norwell, which shot 9-of-11 from the foul line down the stretch to secure the win. Geiger was a perfect 6-for-6 from the stripe in the final period, and the 6-foot, 4-inch, post player did most of the rest of his damage in the paint.

Norwell also got 13 points from Nicholson, a 6-foot, 7-inch senior.

“The bottom line was, we really struggled stopping their bigs inside,” said Krieg. “We could not keep the Geiger kid off the offensive rebounds.

“He was just so much stronger than us. We felt like we had him boxed out, and then next thing you know he’s in front of us.”

Jay County got a team-high 16 points from junior Michael Schlechty. Stigleman scored eight of his 10 points in the final period, and Parker Grimes had seven of his career-high 10 in the fourth quarter.

“Parker was huge for us,” said Krieg. “He went to the boards. He finished around the basket. ...

“I’m very proud of Parker. He did what he had to do to keep us in the game.”

The Patriots had won 7 of 10 games following a 3-5 start to the year. The most recent stretch of victories began with a 20-point win over South Adams and included last weekend’s back-to-back triumphs over Heritage, avenging the ACAC tournament loss, and Leo.

JCHS will face a tournament rival tonight as it hosts Chris Johnson’s four-time defending sectional champion Homestead Spartans (12-7), who will also be looking to rebound from a defeat. They had won seven in a row before falling 55-45 Friday to Summit Athletic Conference rival Carroll.

Containing senior point guard Onye Ezeakudo will be key, Krieg said.

“(He) can just control the game,” said Krieg. “He’s very skilled, quick, athletic, plays great defense, anticipates well, shoots, attacks. He does it all.”



Junior varsity

Jay County was unable to slow down the Knights in overtime as it fell 50-45.

The Patriots were up by three at the half, but found themselves trailing 31-28 heading into the final period. They bounced back to tie the game at the end of regulation, but gave up 12 points in the extra session in the loss.

Matt Franks scored 17 points to lead Jay County. Korbin Auker added eight points, and Landon Grimes and Gabe Faulkner each had five. All Grimes’ scoring came in overtime.

Three players scored in double figures for Norwell, which went 8-of-10 from the free-throw line in the extra session. Drew Federspiel was 4-of-4 in overtime and finished with 15 points. Eli Riley followed with 13 points, and Kyle Henschen added 11.



C team

The youngest group of Patriots on the court also went to overtime but couldn’t score in the extra session as they suffered a 31-27 loss to Norwell.

Jay County trailed at the end of each of the first three quarters before pulling even behind Sheldon Upp and Brinnin Wasson in the fourth quarter. But they got outscored 4-0 in the extra session.

Upp scored half of his game-high 12 points in the fourth quarter. Wasson had all of his five points, including a 3-pointer, in the fourth as well.

Jason Alexander totaled six points for JCHS on a pair of first-quarter 3-pointers.

Tanner Felger paced Norwell with 10 points, including a pair of overtime free throws. Josh Henslee made the only field goal of the extra session as part of an eight-point effort.