Patriots hold on for win

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For the first time this season the Patriots pitched a shutout for a quarter.

They did just enough over the next three to hang on and make the next round.

Jay County High School’s boys basketball team kept Southern Wells off the scoreboard in the first eight minutes and held off the Raiders for the final 24 Tuesday in a 43-35 victory in the quarterfinal round of the Allen County Athletic Conference tournament.

“At this stage of the game when you’re playing in tournament it’s all about getting to the next day,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg, whose team hosts Adams Central in the semifinal round at approximately 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

The semifinal round was originally scheduled for Friday, but because of the threat of inclement weather it was moved up one day.

“Find a way to win,” added Krieg, whose team moves to 6-5 on the year. “Obviously (it) wasn’t our best performance.”

Southern Wells (2-8) missed its first seven shots of the game and committed six turnovers in the first quarter.

“Got a lot of guys on the floor right now who either haven’t played a ton or haven’t played in their roles very much,” Southern Wells coach Ben Burman said. “We’re a senior-heavy team but we’re still not an experienced basketball team. There were some key possessions there where we didn’t take a very good shot or didn’t execute very well.”

The second quarter, though, belonged to the Raiders. They finally ended the shutout as Kreigh Roush hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key on his team’s 10th shot of the game. It sparked a 9-2 Raider run, which included another Roush triple and a right side jumper from Colton Paxson.

Jay County, which led 7-0 after the first quarter, had its advantage cut to just 13-11 at halftime.

“Took us forever to score,” Krieg said of his team’s second-quarter effort. “That had to do with shooting it and lack of focus.”

After shooting 37.5 percent (3-of-8) in the first quarter, Jay County was 2-of-10 (20 percent) in the second.

“We missed a ton of shots around the basket,” Krieg said. The Patriots finished 16-of-40 (40 percent) from the field, and were worse than 50 percent (14-of-30) from in front of the arc.

“We missed wide-open layup after wide-open layup,” Krieg added. “It was just one of those days there was a lid on the basket on those layups.”

Jay County’s lead again got up to seven points, 28-21, after a Wyatt Geesaman fast break basket, but the Raiders got as close as one point on two separate occasions.

Six straight Southern Wells points trimmed the margin to 28-27 in the early going of the fourth quarter, and later in the period Jordan Bower hit the second of his two 3-pointers to make it 32-31 with 5:40 to play.

“Really proud of the way our guys battle back,” Burman said. “They didn’t drop their heads.”

Geesaman scored eight of his team-high 10 points in the second half, extended the JCHS lead as he dished a pass to Ryan Schlechty, then hit a jumper from the right side to make it 36-31. Roush split a pair of free throws, and Cole Stigleman scored on a fast-break layup with 1:46 to play and JCHS was out front 38-32.

From there, Southern Wells was forced to foul and Jay County made four of its five shots from the foul line to stave off the Raiders.

“I’m proud of our kids,” Krieg said. “We get to move on and that’s what’s important.”

During their regular season contest Saturday, Jay County defeated Adams Central 52-43 in Monroe. The Patriots have beaten the Jets all nine times the two teams have met, including a 47-41 overtime victory in the ACAC tournament championship in 2016. It was to date the Patriots’ only title since joining the conference prior to the 2014-15 season.

“These kids have put themselves in position to win this conference,” Krieg said.