Boys rout Raiders in tournament opener

PONETO — The Raiders couldn’t make a shot in the first quarter.
The Patriots hardly missed.
The Jay County High School boys basketball team shot 80 percent from the field in the first 16 minutes en route to a 46-20 victory Tuesday in the quarterfinal round of the Allen County Athletic Conference.
“We got good looks, and if you get good looks you’re going to knock them down,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, whose team will play host to Bluffton at 7 p.m. tonight. The Tigers defeated Adams Central 59-44 in Monroe. “I still didn’t think we finished real well sometimes inside. I thought we got bumped off the block a little bit.
“We have to do a better job at establishing the post position.”
It was the play down low, however, that helped Jay County (9-2) get out to a 16-0 lead to start the game. Sophomore Jay Houck, who led all players with 12 points, had an 8-0 run to open the game. He worked the post for four of those points, and then was the beneficiary of assists from Justin Dirksen and Kyler Carvel for the other two buckets.
“We need him and Adam (Dirksen) in double figures every night,” said Teagle. “We can’t have one of them, we need both of them in double figures.”
Carvel nearly reached double-digit scoring, matching his career high with eight points. He also had a game- and career-high six assists. He was a perfect 4-for-4 from the field, but missed a pair of fourth-quarter free throws after he was fouled hard into the padded stanchion under the hoop.
“Player of the game for me is Kyler Carvel,” Teagle said of the junior. “I thought his energy level was really high. I thought both offensively and defensively he did some really nice things for us.”
For Southern Wells (1-9), though, the offense was stagnant early on. The Raiders, who have lost nine straight games, missed their first 10 shots.
“I thought there were some times we got good looks, they just didn’t go down,” said SWHS coach Ben Burman. “We don’t typically shoot that poorly. I don’t know if our kids came out and were nervous, or what it was.”
As Southern Wells went scoreless through the first quarter — Jay County led 10-0 — it got to the point where the Raider faithful were gasping and flabbergasted with every miss, wondering when the string of bad luck would end.
With 4:19 remaining in the half, Keaton Coleman drove the lane for a layup and his team’s first points. He ended with a team-high eight points.
With the first bucket out of the way, the offensive struggles continued for Southern Wells, as it went into halftime having made just two of its 13 attempts (15 percent) and trailing 24-6.
Things improved slightly in the second half for the Raiders, who were 4-of-12 from the field, with three of their makes coming from behind the arc.
Jay County led by as many as 28 late in the fourth quarter thanks to Jason Schlosser and Bowen Runyon combining for a seven-point Patriot run.
Schlosser, a sophomore, cashed in on a Carvel assist for an easy layup for his first varsity points, and was fouled as the ball went through the hoop. He missed the try for an old fashioned three-point play, and following a pair of missed freebies by Runyon, Schlosser was sent back to the line and made the first of his two tries.
Runyon then followed with two buckets, one on a fast break and the other on a pass at the block from Schlosser.
“(Runyon) did a nice job, especially late in the game,” Teagle said. “He was getting right on the rim line and I thought we did a good job getting him the basketball in the right position to score.”
Schlosser and Runyon finished with five and four points respectively.
With Bluffton up next in the semifinal round, Teagle said his defense has to clean up some of the mistakes it made against Southern Wells.
“(Bluffton) is a really good basketball team,” he said, “and if you miss matchups, they’ll make you pay every time.”
The winner tonight will advance to the tournament championship against either Woodlan or Leo. Leo sits at 12-0 on the season after defeating South Adams 83-73, and Woodlan, which is the defending ACAC champion, beat Heritage 66-59 in its quarterfinal matchup.
The conference championship game is slated for 6 p.m. Saturday at South Adams.