Jan 13

Written by: ngreditor
1/13/2009 8:39 PM 

Bluejays win two very close games

Matt Rudloff

The Bluejays traveled to Tilden Elkhorn Valley on January 5th to play the Falcons. The Jays found themselves down by over 12 points early in the second quarter. The Jays scored 24 points in the second quarter to take a 39-33 lead into halftime.

In the third quarter, both teams slowed down and each scored nine points. The Jays then hung on to the win after the Falcons cut the lead to three with around a minute to go and had another three point shot that about went in.

“Free throws were key in securing the win at the end of this game. We left the door open for Tilden but were given some second chances to hang on. The Boys did a nice job securing the win.”

On January 10, the Jays traveled to Plainview in what proved to be a very exciting game. The game started very slow with no points being scored for the first three to four minutes of the game. Many fouls occurred and both teams were shooting in the bonus by the start of the second quarter. At the end of the first the Jays led 9-6. Plainview outscored the Jays 18-10 to take a 24-19 lead at half.

Scoring was close to even in the third with the Jays scoring 12 and the Pirates scoring 11. Early in the fourth quarter the Jays were down by 12 and cut to around 8 points. With about 2:38 left in the game, the Jays found themselves down by 10. Tanner Krueger hit a three to start an exciting comeback.

With about 12 seconds on the clock Darrek Schmidt hit a runner to tie the game at 47 all.

The Jays took the momentum into overtime to outscore the Pirates 7-1 and win the game 54-28.

“I was very proud of the guys for never giving up. This game was very ugly with 48 fouls being committed and 58 free throws being shot. They could have easily cashed it in when they were down by 10 but rallied and stole this game from Plainview.”

The Jays played most of the game without starting point guard Jordan Nelson as he obtained his third foul early in the first quarter, did not play the second quarter, obtained his fourth within the first minute of the third quarter and fouled out early in the fourth quarter.

“Jordan had some bad luck with fouling tonight. A couple of his fouls were very touchy. I thought Jordan supported his team well after such frustrating experience. He gave moral support and cheered his teammates on when it could have been easy to hang your head.”

The Jays travel to Elgin High on January 13th. Elgin is 6-2 so far on the year. “Our next three games will be a good test four us and we have Elgin, then 5-2 Howells and 6-1 Humphrey St. Francis.”