Jay downs Blackford

The Bruins and Patriots had been neck-and-neck through most of the game.

A Bruins’ 3-pointer made it a one-possession game, but never got any closer.

The Jay County High School boys basketball team finished Saturday’s game on a 15-7 run over the final eight minutes to take down the Blackford Bruins 56-43.

With wins against Blackford and at Allen County Athletic Conference-rival Bluffton on Friday, the Patriots (6-9) have built a four-game winning streak.

“It was a weekend with opposite preparations,” JCHS coach Jerry Bomholt said. “Preparation on Friday for a team that was extremely patient and try to make you play defense for a really long time.

“Then got a team tonight that’s going to try and push the ball. So you got to get your fanny back on defense and get the sideline covered up. We gave up a couple of transition baskets where our guard didn’t get back, but all-in-all a pretty good job.”

Jay County held a 41-36 lead as the buzzer signaled the end of the third quarter. One minute, 12 second into the final period, Gage Baker threw a cross-court pass to Ethan Morris, who nailed a three to cut the deficit to two points.

From there, the Patriots took over.

The first score of the quarter came from Wesley Bihn, who converted a layup after receiving a dump off from a driving Liam Garringer. The bucket was Bihn’s fifth of the game – he finished with 11 points, the most since Dec. 1 when he had 12 – all of which came on dump off from penetrating guards and wings.

“It feels good, given my last three games I could not finish,” said Bihn who shot 5-of-11 against Blackford (11-7). “(My teammates) are really what got me back into it. I wouldn’t have scored if not for them.”

After Bihn’s layup, Gradin Swoveland hit a pair of shots to extend Jay County’s lead to eight. Both shots were pull-ups near the free-throw line.

The Bruins broke their 3-minute long scoring drought when Baker swiped away the ball and found Jacob Leas for a transition bucket to make it 47-41.

Swoveland responded on the next play with a drive to the rim for two, pushing the lead back to eight points.

“Swoveland is a real key for us, because even though he’s a sophomore, he’s the one kid that can take it inside and shoot over people,” Bomholt said. “We want him with the basketball as much as possible at the end, especially when we're still trying to take it and score.”

Swoveland scored one more point in the quarter on a bonus free throw to secure a team-high 14 points.

Parker Nichols also played a sizable role in the fourth-quarter run. After turnover troubles for Jay County, Nichols was subbed in to have an extra ball handler on the floor to handle Blackford’s full-court pressure.

His first contribution came on a breakaway layup. With heavy backcourt pressure, Nichols faked in and cut towards the front court, received the pass and ran away for an easy layup.

After the bucket, Nichols’ primary contribution came from breaking the press and splitting double teams to bring the ball into the front court safely. As a result, the Bruins were forced to foul Jay County, leading to five points off of free throws, including two by Nichols that iced the game away at 56-43 with 19.6 seconds to go.

“Like coaches told us in the locker room, ‘you gotta want the ball at the end of the game,’” Nichols said. “‘You want to be the guy who takes care of it and you want them to foul you.’ If we all trust each other and everyone does a good job taking care of it, those things just come easy.

“It always feels good hitting them at the end when it seals the game, so it felt great to be able to do that.”

Along with Swoveland and Bihn, Garringer reached double digits with 12 points.

Baker was the primary source of offense for Blackford, posting 18 points on 5-of-13 shooting and six free throws. 

The rest of the Bruins struggled, shooting 34.6% (9-26) to score 25 points, while committing 24 turnovers.

“We struggled for pretty much the whole game, especially on the offensive end of the floor,” Blackford coach Matt Justin said. “They’ve held a couple of teams to under 20 points here recently. They’ve got all that length and they play that matchup zone. 

“We still scored close to 50 points, but we had so many turnovers and careless mistakes and it’s hard to win if we’re that inefficient on the offensive end.”

Junior varsity

Eli Dirksen fueled strong first and third quarters as Jay County took out the Bruins 55-31.

The JCHS junior had six opening-period points and nine in the third to total 15, as the Patriots (10-4) put up 17 in each quarter. Eight other Patriots scored, six of which hit multiple buckets.

Mason McFeely and Reggie Duren combined for six of Blackfords’ nine 3-point shots to score nine each.

Blackford only matched the Patriots in the fourth with 11 points, but was outscored by at least one in every other quarter.