For(thofer) the win

The Patriots haven’t beat the Trojans in their last three tries, and have only taken two of the past 25 matchups.

They had a chance to take them down in regulation, but up two points, the Patriots gave up a layup to Landon Thompson on a baseline-out-of-bounds play with seconds left.

Then in the first overtime period, they could have taken home the victory, but Jayden Comer’s finger roll bounced around the rim before falling off.

The Patriots had a third opportunity to take home the win in the second overtime period, but Gradin Swoveland couldn’t get the shot to fall, making it look like a third overtime was imminent.

Cole Forthofer made sure that the third time was the charm.

Forthofer put back Swoveland’s miss to lift the Jay County High School boys basketball team to victory over the New Castle Trojans 58-56 in double overtime on Saturday.

The Trojans (1-5) beat Jay County (3-2) twice last year and bounced it from the sectional tournament. The victory both got revenge for last year’s playoff loss and was the first victory since the 2021-22 sectional opener. The game also pushed JCHS coach Jerry Bomholt to 597 career wins and it pitted transfer Tucker Griffin against his former school. Despite pulling off a win that was meaningful in a variety of ways, Bomholt didn’t let it cover up the focus of the season.

“It’s just a game,” Bomholt said. “I wasn’t real happy with how we got behind. We didn’t do a very good job of what we set out to do, so we had to go to plan B and I wasn’t too happy about doing that either. We just missed so many opportunities. I’m certain they probably felt like they did too, but it just feels like we missed so many more easy shots around the basket than they did.

“But we hung in there. Everybody made a play for us somewhere down the line that was important, whether it was a rebound or a basket.”

Forthofer made one of the biggest of those plays late in the second overtime period.

With 59.5 seconds left, Bomholt called a timeout to set up a play for the final shot. After the Patriots burned the clock down to 10 seconds, Comer turned to the left side of the floor where Swoveland curled a staggered screen to get downhill to the bucket.

Swoveland got a good look at the rim, but his layup fell off the side with seconds remaining. Off of the staggered screen, Forthofer sealed Braylen Bennett, allowing the Patriot 6 foot, 9 inch center to tip the ball back in with just 2.5 seconds remaining.

“I had Gradin’s man caught with my arm and another guy on my butt,” Forthofer said. “I knew if he’s missing that shot, I’m getting the rebound and putting it back. … Coach was kind of mad because I lost my mind. I was running already past half court and we’re supposed to get in last-second defense and I’m on ball, so I got my butt rippled a little after it, but I was pretty excited.”

Cole Forthofer, a junior at Jay County High School, puts up a layup during the Patriots’ 58-56 double-overtime victory against New Castle on Saturday. Forthofer scored a team-high 18 points, including seven points in OT and the game-winning put back with just over two seconds remaining. The win was just the third for Jay County in the last 25 matchups against the Trojans. (The Commercial Review/Andrew Balko)

 

Forthofer put together a strong second half for the Patriots. After scoring just four points and pulling down one rebound in the second half, the junior finished with a team-high 18 points and nine rebounds.

Beyond hitting the game winner, Forthofer played a key role in overtime, scoring seven points. Swoveland accounted for the other three points, and assisted two of Forthofer’s baskets. The center also made a key defensive play with two minutes left in the second overtime, altering a pair of shots to keep the game tied at 55.

New Castle was led by guard Mason Miller, who made his second appearance after being injured to start the year. The NCHS junior finished with 27 points on 8-of-15 (53.3%) shooting and 6-of-7 (85.7%) free throws. 

“He’s a pretty hard person to guard,” said Griffin who guarded Miller in man-to-man in the second half. “Just got to get in his head and play as solid defense as I can and I had my teammates to help me through it all.”

At the break, Miller had nine points, all from beyond the arc. As a whole, the Trojans made six 3-pointers over the first 16 minutes, while only attempting three 2-point shots.

Early in the third quarter, Jay County switched to a man-to-man defense that kept NCHS off the three point line. Griffin, a former Trojan, only allowed Miller to get two more quality looks from deep off of a ball screen and a deep pull up in the fourth quarter.

While the Patriots slowed New Castle down from 3-point range they went on a run of their own. Baskets from Eli Petro, Swoveland, Aiden Phillips and Comer made for a 9-0 run to get Jay County within one point. A 3-point play by Miller broke a 4-minute scoring drought, but Forthofer and Phillps made two more layups to finish the quarter 13-5.

“Honestly we see (man-to-man) defense every week, but I thought it was more for their players,” said NCHS coach Daniel Cox. “I thought it got their motors going. Them getting after us and getting out of that zone that kind of gets stagnant sometimes. I thought it helped them on the offensive end, not even necessarily off of live ball turnovers but just emotionally they were more in the game playing with more urgency.

“I was surprised to see it, but we weren’t surprised by what happened.”

After coming back in the third quarter, the Patriots worked a 48-46 lead off of a Griffin three with 49 seconds left. New Castle managed to send the game into overtime off of a baseline-out-of-bounds play that had Landon Thompson scoring near the rim.

JCHS nearly ended the game in the first overtime as well, but after holding for the last shot, Comer snaked his way to the rim but missed the finger roll as time expired.

Despite coming up short the first two times, the Patriots found a way to pull out the win against a potential sectional opponent.

“We’ll take it,” Bomholt said. “We’ve got a pretty good mixture of athletes we can at least make some sort of basketball team out of. If they’ll all continue to buy in and do what they’re capable of doing, I think it could be a fun year.”