Boys destroy Raiders

The Patriots were firing on all cylinders on Saturday night.
Southern Wells had a difficult time putting much of anything together on either side of the court.
The Jay County High School boys basketball team held the Southern Wells Raiders to just three points in the opening half on its way to a 66-27 clubbing of the visiting Raiders.
It was the second consecutive game the Patriots (12-3, 4-1 Allen County Athletic Conference) won by 30 or more points. They dismantled South Adams 59-29 on Friday in Berne.
“It was a good start,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, whose team beat Southern Wells for the second time in 11 days. The Patriots defeated the Raiders 46-20 Jan. 13 in the opening round of the ACAC tournament. “We wanted to give them a little bit different look and extend a little bit so they didn’t get comfortable.”
And it worked, as Southern Wells (1-12, 0-5 ACAC) turned the ball over seven times and missed all three field-goal attempts in the opening quarter. At the same time, Jay County scored the first 17 points of the contest in relatively easy fashion.
Zach Pryor opened the scoring with a bucket on a scramble play, then Adam Dirksen went on a personal four-point run before his older brother Justin scored seven straight points. It gave the Patriots a 13-0 lead, which was aided by four straight Raider turnovers.
Jay Houck joined the scoring with a spin move in the paint on a dish from Justin Dirksen, and Bowen Runyon grabbed an offensive rebound and bounced it off the glass for an easy bucket.
It wasn’t until the final minute of the frame that Southern Wells, which has lost 12 straight games, found the bottom of the net. Triston Niblick split a pair of free throws to put his team on the scoreboard.
Jay County went on another run — this time 11 points — that spanned the final minute of the first quarter and the first six minutes of the second to lead by a whopping 30-1. Zach Pryor scored four consecutive points during the run, and Jason Schlosser, Adam Dirksen and Houck all contributed.
Justin Dirksen led the Patriots in scoring 13 points. Houck followed with 12, and Adam Dirksen added 10.
Then with 1:42 left in the first half, Southern Wells junior Keaton Coleman hit a jumper from the right elbow for his team’s first field goal of the game. But the Patriots answered with six more points to head into intermission with a 36-3 advantage.
“They came out and put a little more pressure than they did last time and we struggled to handle that a little bit,” said Southern Wells coach Ben Burman, whose team missed its first 10 shots and was scoreless through the opening quarter in the Jan. 13 meeting. “When you’re playing a team that is disciplined and as good as Jay County, you can’t make any mistakes.
“We made too many mistakes. You can’t go possessions without getting shots.”
Southern Wells got on track offensively in the second half after an abysmal 1-of-10 shooting from the field in the first. It was 10-of-16 after intermission.
Coleman scored 10 of his game-high 14 points in the third quarter, thanks to a pair of 3-pointers. He hit a trey from the right side for his team’s first points of the second half — the Raiders trailed 38-6 — and he added another midway through the third quarter from the left wing.
Burman said he told his team at halftime it needed to spread the ball more to get open looks and to cut to the hoop in hopes of bringing Patriot defenders with them.
“I think that’s what opened things up for Keaton,” Burman said of Coleman, who led his team in scoring with eight points the last time it played the Patriots. “Everyone else started cutting, kind of took some of that defensive pressure off and he was able to free himself for a couple decent, long shots.
“He was definitely a bright spot for us.”
But the Patriots kept up the offensive intensity in the final 16 minutes, as they shot 12-of-16 (75 percent) after a solid 14-for-21 (67 percent) effort in the opening half.
Jay County led by as many as 43 with less than four minutes remaining to record its biggest win of the season.
Pryor also added nine points to go with his game-high six assists, giving the Patriots three players with 10 or more points and two more on the verge of double figures.

Junior varsity
The Patriots fell below .500 in the conference with a 46-38 defeat to the Raiders.
Jay County (7-5, 2-3 ACAC) was tied at 12 with Southern Wells following the first quarter, but fell behind 23-18 at half. It rallied to tie the game at 31 heading into the final period and was outscored 15-7 in the final seven minutes.
Justin Crouch paced the Patriots with 13 points. Spencer Calvert tallied seven points, and Ryan Burkett and Cole Stigleman both chipped in with six points.