Jay boys steamroll Randolph Southern

The Patriots missed 11 shots Saturday night.
Randolph Southern only made seven.
The Jay County High School boys basketball team dominated both sides of the court in a 47-18 rout of the visiting Rebels.
With the lopsided victory, Jay County (5-2) bounced back from consecutive losses after starting the season with four straight wins. The Patriots fell Dec. 13 at Richmond and Friday night against new Allen County Athletic Conference foe Leo.
Patriot coach Craig Teagle said he was happy to get back in the win column.
“You want to get a win,” he said. “I thought it was a little sloppy, but you can give Randolph Southern credit, they played that tight 2-3 zone and kept our bigs from being able to finish around the rim.”
Jay County scored the game’s first 12 points before the Rebels (0-6) broke the shutout with 1:55 remaining in the opening quarter when Kory Slick split a pair of free throws. It wasn’t until nearly 10 minutes into the game that the visitors made their first field goal, a 3-pointer by Logan Ward that made the score 18-4.
“I knew coming in it was going to be tough to get around them and get shots,” said RSHS coach Tom Byrum, whose team had seven turnovers and missed five shots on its first 13 possessions. “We were going to have to hit everything we threw up. They do a good job of switching (and) we didn’t do a good job of slipping and taking away their strengths.”
Jay County’s Justin Dirksen, who shared the game-high of 13 points with his brother Adam, followed Ward’s trey with a bucket on an assist by Jay Houck, and tacked on two more points on a fast break after stealing the ball at midcourt.
Randolph Southern outscored Jay County in the final four minutes of the opening half, 7-5. Nick Dunham recorded his only four points of the game, and Caleb Tomey hit the first of his two 3-pointers as the Rebels trailed 27-11 going into halftime.
And the Patriots didn’t let up when they came out of the locker room.
After shooting 10-of-14 (71 percent) before halftime, the Patriots were 7-of-14 after the break to finish just above 60 percent for the game.
“We’ve shot the ball at a pretty high rate, but we should because Jay (Houck) and Adam (Dirksen) are getting a lot of shots around the basket,” said Teagle. “We’re starting to shoot the three better than we have and hopefully we can continue that.”
Houck, who scored all six of his points in the first half, combined with Adam Dirksen to make seven of their 10 shots near the hoop.
It was the Dirksen brothers who took over the game in the third quarter.
Justin, a senior, opened the second half with one of his trio of 3-pointers. Adam turned away a shot at the defensive side of the court, and Clemens found the big man for an easy bucket to push the JCHS lead to 32-11.
Ward answered on an assist from Dunham, and then the younger Dirksen assisted on the third and final long ball by Justin when he kicked it out to his brother from the right block.
Justin’s performance from the perimeter is something Teagle said he was pleased with.
“It was nice to see (him) hit three threes,” said Teagle, whose team was 4-of-8 from the outside, tying the most 3-point attempts in a game for the Patriots. “We’re going to have to have a couple guys step up and hit them.”
At the other end of the court, though, Adam made his presence known underneath the hoop. Eight of his game-high nine rebounds came on defense.
“He’s a factor,” Teagle said. “If we make mistakes he can erase some of them with blocks or at least get his hands up and make them shoot over him.
“On the boards, with that length it really helps us. I thought he played really solid.”
Adam Dirksen tipped in a miss by Kyler Carvel as the buzzer sounded to end the third quarter. It closed out an eight-point run by the Patriots as they had their biggest lead of the game, 43-13, heading into the fourth quarter.

Junior varsity
Spencer Calvert scored 11 of Jay County’s 20 points in the first quarter as the Patriots rolled to a 54-9 victory.
Randolph Southern managed just three points in the second quarter and two in the third. The Patriots (3-4) had a 33-3 advantage at halftime and led by 40 after three quarters.
Justin Crouch scored eight of his game-high 16 points in the second quarter to pace the Patriots. After Calvert’s 11 points, Ryan Burkett followed with nine points and Cole Stigleman chipped in with seven. Wesley Smith had five points, and Kyler Hudson added four.