Morey, Yorktown top Jay County

The Jay County High School boys basketball team prides itself on preparing for its opponents.
It has detailed scouting reports on all of its foes, and to be successful those game plans must be followed to a T.
Saturday against the Yorktown Tigers, the Patriots’ main focus was to keep Caleb Morey from shooting from long distance.
Jay County’s plan faltered, as Morey hit five of his team’s seven 3-pointers in a 42-29 defeat of the host Patriots.
“Probably the disappointing thing is we knew going in that was their strength,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, whose team had its four-game win streak snapped. “We just didn’t get a hand up, didn’t put it on the shooting pocket and gave up threes to him.
“Shooters get hot, the basket gets bigger and he shot the crap out of it. But that’s our fault. He wasn’t supposed to get a three. Credit him, but some of that goes against us. We didn’t do a good job at all on him.”
Morey, who had a game-high 17 points, hit his first 3-pointer to give Yorktown (13-5) a 6-3 lead midway through the opening quarter. Jay County (14-4) tied it at 10 early in the second, but another Morey triple from the right corner gave the visiting Tigers a lead they would hold for the remainder of the game.
“You’ve got to make shots against Jay County,” Yorktown coach Greg Miller said. “They’re awfully good at not letting you get close to the rim.
“Fortunately (Morey) and our offense was able to generate some open looks.”
Morey added another three later in the quarter, and the Patriots trailed 19-15 at the intermission with eight turnovers in the first half.
“We were terrible offensively early,” Teagle said. “Didn’t fake a pass to make it. Didn’t step to balls, fumbled balls … we just weren’t any good offensively.
“Just to be down four at halftime, probably was a miracle at that point as bad as we played.”
The methodical offense of Jay County broke out of its funk in the third quarter, cutting the deficit to 21-19 on buckets by Adam Dirksen and Jay Houck. The latter had a team-high 12 points, and Dirksen chipped in with eight.
But there was Morey again, hitting a trey from the right wing to get the Tigers’ advantage back to two possessions. The next trip down the court, Riley Miller drained a three to force Teagle into calling a timeout.
After the break, Jay County’s Nick Clemens and Jacob Preston of Yorktown traded 3-pointers, Dirksen connected on a play in the paint and Morey nailed his final shot from long distance to give the Tigers a 33-24 lead with 2:21 left in the third.
Late in the frame, Justin Dirksen drove to the basket and was fouled as he threw up a shot. It went through the hoop, but the referee whistled the foul before the shot.
It was a play Teagle was disappointed to see go the other way.
“I thought a big momentum play is, (Dirksen) got fouled, I thought the basket was good and we were going to go to the free-throw line,” he said. “We haven’t played good and now (we’ve) got some momentum.
“(The referee) called that one on the floor, and that’s how it goes sometimes. When you haven’t been playing very well, you just don’t get those breaks.”
That was when the game started to slip away from the Patriots. They were just 1-of-3 shooting in the fourth quarter — Zach Pryor tallied his fifth and final assist on a bucket by Houck — and turned the ball over four times in the final eight minutes.
“We feel very fortunate to walk out of here with a win because it doesn’t happen very often,” Miller said.

Junior varsity
Trailing by three heading into the fourth quarter, freshman Cole Stigleman scored 11 of his game-high 18 points in the final frame to give the Patriots a 45-40 victory over the Tigers.
Jay County (10-5) was outscored 21-15 in the middle two quarters until it exploded for 21 points in the fourth behind Stigleman’s surge.
Jason Schlosser and Justin Crouch scored 10 points apiece to join the freshman in double figures. Dakota Grove and Ryan Burkett added four and three points respectively for the Patriots.
Jordan Coleman led Yorktown with 14 points.