Bring on the rings (11/30/06)

Friday night, the 2005-06 Jay County boys basketball team will come full circle.

The Patriots gave their fans a thrill ride last season, making a run all the way to the Class 3A state finals. At the first home game of the 2006-07 season Friday night, they will receive their state runner-up rings.

"That's going to be pretty amazing with all the fans there," said Zac Green, a senior on the 2005-06 squad. "It'll be just like last year.

"I know it's going to be pretty awesome."

Green, a student at Manchester College, and fellow '06 senior John Retter will be at JCHS for the ring ceremony Friday.

"It's going to mean a lot to have those kids back," said JCHS coach Craig Teagle. "They were such a great part of what we did last year, kids that really bought in to what we were trying to get done ... As you coach through your career you only get (a few) groups that just have that type of team chemistry and have that will and that spirit and that fight. They just did an outstanding job for us."

Classmates Tyler Rigby and Randy Evans will be unable to attend.

Rigby, who along with Green and Retter was at the Patriots' season opener at Elwood Nov. 23, will be playing for Indiana University Southeast as it competes in the Marian College tournament Friday and Saturday. Evans will be visiting his brother in Florida.

Averaging nearly 15 minutes so far this season, Rigby is one of the key players off the bench for the Grenadiers.

He said the thing he misses the most from Jay County is "definitely how many people came to the games. You see college games on TV, but that's not exactly where I'm at."

Rigby said his IU Southeast team averages a few hundred fans per game. It's quite a contrast to the thousands who watched the Patriots make their way through the sectional, regional, semi-state and state tournaments a year ago.

"That's a big part of why we went so far," said the 2006 Arthur L. Trester Mental Attitude Award winner. "There we just so many people."

"It was a great experience," added Evans. "It was probably one of the best times of my life and probably always will be. I thought the fans were just as important as we were on the court."

Friday's ring ceremony will be at the conclusion of the junior varsity contest between the Patriots and the Braves. Each player, coach and manager from the 2005-06 team will be introduced to the fans and will be presented with their state runner-up ring by JCHS athletics director Phil Ford and principal Wood Barwick.

The state runner-up banner, which will hang in the southwest corner of the gym, will also be unveiled, and a team photo will be placed on the Wall of Fame.

Teagle said he thinks it's appropriate that the ceremony will be held as the Patriots take on Bellmont, as that game last season was when his team first showed its potential.

Jay County trailed by 13 at halftime of that game at Bellmont. It trimmed the deficit to seven twice in the third quarter, but could have fallen apart when the Braves' Taylor Terveer rattled in a 50-foot 3-point at the buzzer. Instead, the Patriots calmly outscored Bellmont 28-10 in the fourth quarter for a 70-64 comeback win.

"We just continued to fight and kept playing like we weren't behind, like we were right in the game the whole time," said Teagle. "And pretty soon we were able to take a lead. That was what we'd seen the summer before and then throughout the year we just didn't let the score effect us. Whether we were up or down, we just continued to play consistent."

Jay County went on to win seven of its first eight games on the way to a 14-6 regular season. In the sectional tournament it topped Elwood 66-31, Tipton 52-50 on Scott "Scooter" Bruggeman's game-winning shot in overtime and Mississinewa 54-49 in the championship game.

The team hit 50-of-59 free throws in regional wins over a pair of Kosciusko county crews - Tippecanoe Valley (63-57) and Wawasee (69-61). Then Corey Comer sent the Patriots to the state finals, hitting the game-winning shot with 1.6 seconds left in overtime for a 53-52 semi-state victory over Plymouth.

"I think we really did something kind of different that nobody had done at Jay County yet for basketball," said Green. "For us I think it was pretty cool because not everybody gets to do that. A lot of us got to come pretty close to accomplishing a lot of your dreams."

Jay County nearly completed the dream run, holding a seven-point lead early in the third quarter of the 2006 state championship game. But, Zach Hahn scored 14 points in the third quarter and 29 in the game to rally New Castle to the state title with a 51-43 win.

Still, the final defeat could not detract from the outstanding season turned in by the true team on which no player averaged more than 12 points per game. Before last season no group of Patriots had ever won a regional title, let alone a semi-state or state.

"It means a lot, especially in the state of Indiana, the basketball capital of the world. That's one of the most prized things in the state," said Retter, adding that the team chemistry Teagle has so often referred to was what made that month of March so special. "Mostly it was just the fun that I had with the other players and the whole community being supportive. There's a lot of memories."[[In-content Ad]]