Patriots’ streak reaches seven

The Patriots and Bruins are at opposite ends of lengthy streaks.
Jay County High School’s boys basketball team beat the Blackford Bruins 62-30 on Saturday, pushing its season-best winning streak to seven games.
The Bruins, however, are now winless on the season and have lost 43 straight games dating back to 2013.
“I felt like offensively we did a great job,” said JCHS coach Chris Krieg, whose team opened the game with 13 consecutive points and led 15-7 after the first quarter. “We attacked the basket and we did some things we had to do.”
While the offense had some hiccups — the Patriots (12-4) turned the ball over six times during the first quarter — they were not pressured much by Blackford (0-16).
Senior Adam Dirksen, who finished with a game-high 16 points and eight rebounds, drained a pair of free throws and threw down an alley-oop on a pass from Kyler Carvel to get Jay County ahead 4-0 about two minutes into the contest.
Four points from Carvel, three from sophomore Cole Stigleman and another Dirksen bucket capped the 13-0 run, forcing Blackford coach Scott Clamme to call a timeout with 4:14 remaining in the quarter.
The Bruins got their first bucket 11 seconds later when Mark White hit a jumper from the elbow, and Joel Sharp scored the next five points, including the first of his four 3-pointers.
Another Sharp trey in the second made it 17-10 Jay County, until the Patriots forced four straight turnovers for eight points in the span of 44 seconds.
Stigleman nailed two free throws, Carvel scored on a fast-break layup, assisted on a dunk by Jay Houck who then dished a pass to a streaking Jason Schlosser for an easy lay in.
Just like that, the seven-point advantage turned into a 25-10 lead.
“We had to go into our half-court trap just to pick up the intensity,” Krieg said. “It is a game we were trying to speed up.”
As if the last eight points hadn’t picked up the intensity, the next scoring play sure did. Following a Blackford turnover in its defensive zone, Jay County had an inbound play from the right side of the basket. Carvel, who finished with 12 points and six assists, lobbed the inbound pass to a streaking Dirksen. He caught the high pass on the run while jumping and slammed home a thunderous one-handed dunk that ignited the student section.
“They were playing with a little more confidence above the rim,” Krieg said of Dirksen and Houck. They combined for four dunks. Houck’s second was on a drop step during the third quarter on a Dirksen assist.
“Jay made a nice move down on the baseline drive,” Krieg said. Houck finished with 10 points and four assists.
The Patriots used runs of nine and eight points respectively during the third quarter to build a 34-point lead, their biggest of the night. Schlosser scored five of his nine points during the final minute of the third quarter, helping Jay County to a 54-21 lead.
A 20-8 advantage in the third quarter allowed the Patriots to pull away from the Bruins. Sharp had two more 3-pointers and Austin Felver banked a shot off the glass for Blackford’s only points.
Sharp led the Bruins with 14 points and Felver had five.
“You take away those 14 points out of the equation and that’s where you want to be,” Krieg said. “I didn’t want to get into chasing him wherever he goes because I felt like we were smart enough to do that. I was wrong.”
Stigleman finished with seven points, four rebounds, three assists and two blocks. Dirksen added five blocks.

Junior varsity
A strong first quarter and stellar defense throughout helped Jay County to a 39-11 victory over Blackford.
The Patriots (9-3) scored all the points they needed in the opening quarter, jumping out to a 22-4 lead after seven minutes. A 10-3 advantage during the second made it 32-7 at half. Jay County matched Blackford’s four points in the third quarter and led 36-9 heading into the final period.
Ryan Schlechty scored eight of his game-high 10 points in the first quarter. Holton Hill followed with eight points, Andrew Trewyn tallied seven points and Parker Grimes added four.
Jacob Ross led the Bruins with seven points.