Krieg begins new era for Jay Co. boys

A new era has begun.
Chris Krieg takes over this year as the Jay County High School boys basketball coach after Craig Teagle led the Patriots for the last 17 seasons.
Teagle left the program in July to take the same position with Huntington North.
Of course following someone like Teagle is a challenge in and of itself, but Krieg does find himself with a team that is coming off of 14 straight winning seasons.
The Patriots, who were 18-7 last year, lost in the sectional title game to eventual state champion Homestead.
Krieg inherits a team that returns four of its top seven scorers from last season, including the two at the top of the list.
Big men Adam Dirksen, a senior, and junior Jay Houck paced the Patriots last season with 11.5 and 11.1 points respectively. They are also the team’s leading rebounders. Dirksen grabbed five boards per game and Houck hauled in 4.4.
Also back is Kyler Carvel, who enters his senior year having averaged 3.8 points as a junior.
The combination of those three has Krieg excited to start a new chapter in his coaching career.
“Obviously when you have your two leading scorers in Adam and Jay coming back you have to be pleased,” said Krieg, who for the last five seasons coached Jay County’s girls basketball team after serving for nearly a decade as Teagle’s junior varsity coach. “And with Kyler coming back with a lot of experience on the floor, those three guys will have a ton of minutes for us.”
Dirksen will reprise his starting role at center, and Houck will slide from power forward to small forward. That gives senior Bowen Runyon, who averaged two points per game in a reserve role, a chance to crack the starting lineup in his final season at Jay County.
Sophomore Cole Stigleman played in 12 games as a freshman, and he’s in line to start at point guard with Carvel in the other guard spot.
“We have a lot of experience coming back so we’re really excited about that,” said Krieg, whose team hosts Lakewood Park Christian in its season opener at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Junior guard Jason Schlosser and his classmate, forward Justin Crouch, are the first two players off the bench. Schlosser played in 12 games as a sophomore, and Crouch has yet to make his varsity debut, although Krieg likes what he sees out of him.
“He is an excellent post player that can step out and hit the three,” he said. “He’s a very strong, physical kid.
“We are hoping when we sub we don’t lose ground, and with those two we shouldn’t lose ground.”
With the height of Dirksen and Houck — the latter stands 6 feet, 5 inches while Dirksen towers at 6 feet, 8 inches — Krieg said he is hopeful to once again have the two of them control the area around the basket.
“When you have two kids that can play above the rim — and from the first day of practice and every day we are doing that — talk about a huge momentum builder,” Krieg said. “I’ve never had two kids that can dunk with ease in a half court set. We’re really excited about that.”
It brings another dimension to the Patriots’ offense, which Krieg said he hopes to be a little more up-tempo than what Teagle ran.
“Right now the kids are playing with a ton of confidence,” he said. “The system is not quite the same. We are going to try and push and get some easy baskets.
“What we do is we don’t shoot the three extremely well so we want to try and get some easy baskets right away.”
With Teagle as coach, Jay County was one of the best defensive teams in the state. Last season, the Patriots set a program record allowing just 33.1 points per game. Krieg hopes to keep that trend.
“We’re still defense oriented,” he said. “I think we are going to try to score a little more, but we have to play defense. We are going to mix up a bit, zone and man, to try to keep (Dirksen) around the basket a little more. I want him down around the basket getting that rebound and then getting it out and going.”
Jay County has the opportunity to play in the Indiana/Kentucky Challenge Cup this season. The showcase has five teams from Indiana squaring off against teams from Kentucky on Jan. 9 at the Frankfort Civic Center in Frankfort, Kentucky.
The all-day event kicks off with a girls game at 10 a.m., with four boys games to follow. Each will be approximately three hours after the previous contest. Jay County is scheduled to play the Cooper Jaguars at about 4 p.m.
“It’s exciting,” Krieg said of the Challenge Cup. “Anytime you get a chance to play a tourney like this and represent the state of Indiana it’s a great thing.
“It’s going to be a great trip.”
As if a postseason run isn’t difficult already, the Class 4A Sectional 6 tournament got even harder. Not only does the sectional — it returns to Huntington North this season — include the defending state champion in Homestead, but Muncie Central was added to the mix.
The Bearcats, who Jay County beat in each of the last two seasons, moved up to Class 4A when the IHSAA reclassified in the spring.
“With Central coming in it is a whole new ballgame,” said Krieg, whose team plays all of its sectional opponents except for Teagle’s Vikings during the regular season. “Huntington is loaded with some athletes that can play basketball. They can be scary come tournament time.”