Elston leads No. 4 Devils (12/08/07)

For a 16-minute span, Derek Elston was essentially non-existent in the Blue Devil offense. But with the game on the line, the junior showed why Indiana University made him the first member of its 2009 recruiting class.

Elston scored 11 straight points for the Class 2A No. 4 Tipton High School boys basketball team, including six consecutive free throws in the final 1:06 that sealed a 46-38 victory over the Jay County Patriots.

"Obviously Indiana doesn't accept a verbal commitment from you as a junior in high school unless you've got a different level," said Blue Devil coach Travis Daugherty of the way Elston lifted his play in the final four minutes. "This has been a challenging (match-up) with Jay County for Derek. He's really battled some frustration. To see him make so many big plays for us down the stretch really gives a sense of how he's matured as a player ..."

The Patriots (1-2) trailed by just a single point midway through the fourth quarter when Elston took over. The 6-foot-8-inch forward buried a step-back 3-pointer with 3:58 to play, and then added a fade-away on the right baseline just over a minute later to put his team up 38-32.

A Billy Wellman 3-pointer brought Jay County back within two, but they never got any closer. Elston hit his first set of free throws with 1:06 left, and the Patriots turned the ball over in the lane on their ensuing possession.

Elston added four more foul shots, and Kyle Coleman buried two with 10 seconds left to complete a 10-of-11 effort from the stripe for Tipton.

"We've had that happen in the past to us," said Teagle of Elston, who finished with 21 points on 6-of-9 shooting, five rebounds, three blocks and an assist. "Huntington North with Sean Kline early in my career here it was the same thing. We could lead them and then late in the game he would just take over.

"I thought Clint did a fantastic job on him. He contested those shots. Our kids overall played great team defense. But he's a heck of a player. That's why he's going to IU."

And while Elston went scoreless for a 16-minute stretch from the middle of the second period to the middle of the fourth, the Blue Devils used the 3-pointer as their main offensive weapon. They went 8-of-15 (53 percent) from long range, with Matt Hodges turning in a 4-of-6 effort en route to his 13 points.

"A lot of that is because of how we had to play," said Teagle. "We had to sag in on (Elston) and that gave them some open shots. Our hope was nobody would get the hot hand. ... The Hodge kid hit a couple tough shots on us."

The victory was something of a milestone for Daugherty and the Blue Devils, who had never beaten Jay County in six previous tries.

See Devils page 9

Continued from page 10

Three of those games were decided by six points or fewer, including the Patriots' 52-50 overtime victory during the sectional semifinal round on their 2006 run to the Class 3A state finals.

"When you look at the history of successful programs on every level, all of them have that hump to get over," said Daugherty, whose team improved to 5-0. "And we've been really close to getting over this hump a lot ... Defensively we really locked in there for a stretch ... and stepped up our play. That's fun to see."

The Patriots jumped out to a 9-3 lead in the first five minutes, but couldn't keep up that momentum. They still managed to lead at the end of each of the first three quarters - they scored in the final five seconds of each - but fell behind for good on freshman Greg Dickey's 3-pointer two minutes into the fourth quarter.

Jay County shot just 2-of-8 from the field in the final period.

"We wouldn't have had to worry about struggling for points late if we hadn't turned it over some early and deviated from our game plan," said Teagle, whose team showed its goal with an opening possession that lasted for more than a minute. "We wanted to make 12 to 15 passes before we took a shot unless it was a lay-up. There were seven or eight possessions where we took it after one pass or two, and almost every time we were unsuccessful on those."

Billy Wellman was the only Patriot in double figures as he finished with 10 points. Clint Muhlenkamp had seven points and four rebounds, Luke Goetz scored six points. Kyle Simmons, a 5-foot-11-inch guard, matched Elston with a game-high five rebounds.

Junior varsity

Like their varsity counterparts, the JV Patriots had the lead after three periods only to get doubled up in the final quarter of a 39-37 loss to Tipton.

Jay County (2-1) was up 34-31 with two minutes to play, but failed to score again until Taylor Farmer hit a 3-pointer with less than a second remaining. In the interim the Blue Devils went on an 8-0 run and sealed the game on a pair of free throws by Levi Bess with 6.1 seconds left.

Bess, who also hit a pair of 3-pointers, paced Tipton with 12 points. Ethan Jacobs scored seven points, and Connor Rich, Jake Hoffman and Micah Voorhis each had six.

Farmer led all scorers with 14 points for the Patriots. Nathan Brown followed with seven points, and Josh Beaty scored six.[[In-content Ad]]