Milestone man

PONETO — Jay Houck had already made four free throws, including his first two of the third quarter.

When he stepped to the line again, Houck lost his chance for a perfect outing as his first attempt hit the side of the rim. The 6-foot, 5-inch forward swished the second, and Patriot coach Chris Krieg called a timeout with 2 minutes, 54 seconds, remaining in the period.

Houck’s charity toss put the Patriots on top of the Raiders 31-24.

But it did something else too.

It marked his place in history.

Houck, a Jay County High School senior, became just the third Patriot player to score 1,000 career points Saturday in the Patriots’ 56-47 victory over the host Southern Wells Raiders.

“What an accomplishment for Jay Houck,” said Krieg, whose team moved to 8-6 on the year and 2-2 in Allen County Athletic Conference play. “I am proud of him.”

Houck approached the huddle at the bench, getting ready to listen to what his coach had to say. Instead, Houck was presented with a ball commemorating the feat. The Southern Wells public address announcer alerted the crowd of Houck’s accomplishment, which was greeted by fans of both teams.

“It was pretty cool,” said Houck, who finished with a game-high 15 points. “It was cool to be recognized by all the fans that you’ve played in front of for four years.

“They always come out and support you. You feel like you’ve done a good job here and it’s a good milestone to get. It was cool to be recognized.”

Southern Wells also gave Houck the ball, a gesture Krieg said he didn’t expect.

“Schools don’t have to do that,” he said. “They didn’t have to let us stop.

“We’re a family in the ACAC.”

Houck entered Saturday’s game 11 shy of the milestone, and took a backseat to Cole Stigleman in the first quarter. Stigleman scored 10 of his career-high 14 points in the first eight minutes, while Houck made one basket in each of the first two quarters and a pair of free throws to head into the locker room with six points.

Jay County was up 22-19 at half after leading by as many as eight points in the first period.

A pair of Houck free throws 75 seconds into the third quarter made it 24-21 Jay County, and Houck got himself one point away from the 1,000 with a basket less than a minute later.

Jason Schlosser and Holton Hill later scored on back-to-back possessions as the Patriots led 30-24. The next time down the court, Houck was whistled for a foul while attempting to grab an offensive rebound. On the ensuing Patriot possession, Houck hauled in an offensive board and was fouled on his way back up to the basket.

After Houck missed his first free throw, he put his toe back at the line, gathered himself, took a deep breath and had no idea what was coming his way.

“A while back I saw that (I was at) 930 in the paper,” he said. “I hadn’t really checked, or no one has told me since then so it was kind of a surprise. I figured it was coming up sometime.”

Jay County later built a 51-35 lead with slightly more than three minutes to play in the fourth quarter, but the Raiders clawed back to trim the margin to single digits, 53-44, with less than 90 seconds to play.

“Probably nobody in the gym expected it to be a competitive game and it got to the point where it looked like it wasn’t going to be competitive,” said Southern Wells coach Ben Burman, whose Raider squad is 8-7 (1-3 ACAC). “It would have been real easy to roll over, and (we) didn’t.”

Milestone aside, Houck was happy to head home with a victory.

“The biggest thing is really just to win,” said Houck, who joins Dan Ferrell and Brock McFarland as the only three players to reach 1,000 points. McFarland is the school's all-time scoring leader with 1,177 points. “We want to win, we want to have fun. If milestones and accomplishments come along with it then that’s good.”



Junior varsity

A strong start offensively and three quarters of solid defense helped Jay County defeat Southern Wells 48-31.

Jay County (8-4) scored 16 points in the first quarter for a 16-7 lead after seven minutes. The Patriots pushed the advantage to 24-13 at halftime, before breaking the game open with a 15-6 edge in the third quarter. Southern Wells outscored Jay County 12-9 in the final period but couldn’t overcome the deficit.

Parker Grimes scored nine of his game-high 13 points in the first half, including an eight-point effort in the first quarter. Xavier Ninde joined him in double figures with 10 points and Korbin Auker followed with nine points.