JC advances to final

FORT WAYNE — It’s customary to receive gifts on birthdays.
On his 18th birthday Friday night, Zach Pryor gave points to his teammates.
Pryor had two assists in the second quarter and three in the third, helping the Jay County High School boys basketball team to a lead it would not relinquish in a 46-35 victory against the host Wayne Generals in the Class 4A Sectional 6 semifinal.
The Patriots advance to play the fourth-ranked Homestead Spartans (24-2), who beat the Fort Wayne South Side Archers 76-57 in the second semifinal Friday night. The sectional championship game will be played at 7 p.m. Monday instead of tonight because Homestead’s girls basketball team is playing in the Class 4A state championship game today.
“It was a good win,” said JCHS coach Craig Teagle, who earned his 250th career victory at Jay County. “I thought we had a lot of turnovers early, but we settled down a little bit.
“We knew their athleticism was going to give us trouble.”
Despite being gifted the basketball because of Jay County turnovers, Wayne (3-19) only led 7-4 with less than three minutes to play in the opening quarter.
A 7-0 run — five points by Justin Dirksen and two by Pryor — gave Jay County (18-6) an 11-7 lead for good.
Wayne’s Michael Foster hit a triple from the right wing early in the second to make it 11-10. Jay County answered despite the defensive pressure by the Generals as Pryor hit Nick Clemens in the paint for two points, and Dirksen added three points on a layup and a free throw.
Following a miss by the Generals at the other end of the court, Pryor launched a pass to a streaking Adam Dirksen, making it 18-11 in favor of the Patriots.
Pryor finished with five assists, and Jay Houck added three in the second half as Jay County finished with assists on 12 of its 18 scoring plays.
“I thought they did a nice job of attacking, pulling away the extra defender and hitting the open guy,” Teagle said of his team tallying assists. “Zach has done that for us all year. He’s done a great job delivering the ball.”
Jay County’s defense, which gives up a state-best 32.2 points per game, limited the second chances for Wayne in the third quarter. The Generals were 2-of-11 from the field after halftime.
“That was one of the keys that we talked about,” said Wayne coach Aaron Rehrer, whose team finished the season on a seven-game losing streak.

“Against a team like Jay County that is so good at running (its) stuff offensively and … so solid defensively, you can’t have one guy take a shot and three guys standing outside. Everybody has to crash.”
Teagle attributed the rebounding dominance — the Patriots had a 24-11 advantage on the boards — to his squad blocking out as soon as the shot went up.
“What we did pretty well was we had people blocking out all over the floor,” said Teagle, whose team defeated the Generals 35-17 on Valentine’s Day. “They didn’t get a lot of guard run-ins on rebounds.”
With the Generals still trying to press defensively in the third quarter, the Patriots were able to benefit from their stellar ball movement and ability to fight through the press. Jay County had a 24-13 lead thanks to consecutive baskets by Justin Dirksen. The senior had a game-high 14 points, and added  five rebounds. Pryor then assisted on buckets by Kyler Carvel and Adam Dirksen, the latter of whom was fouled.
Adam Dirksen, who finished with 11 points and was one rebound away from a double-double, hit the ensuing free throw and Carvel scored the next two baskets — one on yet another dish by Pryor — as Jay County led 33-16.
Carvel scored all eight of his points in the second half.
Houck sat out the majority of the first half with foul trouble, but made his presence known in the fourth quarter. He assisted on back-to-back scoring plays to give his team a 40-20 lead, its biggest of the game, early in the final frame.
Wayne chipped away at the deficit thanks to three consecutive missed free throws by Jay County, but the hill was too steep for the Generals to climb.
“They are just so fundamental and they do a great job running their stuff,” Rehrer said of the Patriots.
Jay County will face its toughest test of the season Monday when it takes on Homestead. The Spartans, led by 6-foot-9-inch Mr. Basketball candidate Caleb Swanigan, manhandled Huntington North 88-45 in the sectional opener on Tuesday, and closed Friday’s win over the Archers with a 25-5 run.
“We don’t match up. We have to out team them,” Teagle said of the Spartans. “We’ll have to play together, and whatever they throw at us we are going to have to handle and execute.
“Defensively we have to do something to take away their bigs. The problem is, they shoot the three really well, too. If we’re going to lose, they are going to have to shoot over us.”