TUSCOLA — The Jim Ned boys basketball team beat Merkel at its own game Friday, using a zone defense to stifle the Badgers while doing enough offensively to score a 39-25 win in a matchup of District 5-3A unbeatens.
The Indians (18-5 overall, 6-0 in district) held Merkel to just two first-quarter points and built a 21-11 halftime lead before holding off a Badger rally in the second half to hand coach B.C. Lee’s squad its first district loss and take over the top spot in the 5-3A standings.
“They’ve got some big kids that they try to get the ball into,” Jim Ned coach Eric Phelps said of the Badgers. “We haven’t played much 2-3 (zone) this year, but we just wanted to kind of pack it in a little bit and make them beat us from the 3-point line and take away their posts inside.
“I thought we did a good job of that. They kind of got hot, so we went man, and the kids did a good job adjusting and shut them down in the second half, too.”
Merkel (15-7, 5-1) finished with just 10 field goals, only four of which came in the first half. After the Badgers scored the first bucket of the game on a shot by Jayden Foss, the Indians countered with a 13-0 run to build a double-digit lead and take most of the wind out of the visitors’ sails.
Merkel would grab the momentum briefly in the third quarter, pulling within six (24-18) at the 4:37 mark. But Jim Ned finished the period on a 7-3 run to pull back ahead by 10, and the Badgers never threatened again.
“Obviously Jim Ned did a great job,” Lee said. “They packed it in there and we couldn’t get (the ball) to our bigs. We knew we were going to have to shoot the ball well to beat these guys, and we didn’t.”
Jim Ned was led in the victory by Dylan Bryant, who scored almost all of his game-high 15 points in the paint. Cade Ford also hit double figures, scoring 11 points, while Ethan Senne finished with seven.
Slade Stone was the only Merkel player to to top four points, hitting four of his team’s five 3-pointers on his way to a team-high 12 points.
Taking away driving lanes with their zone, the Indians limited explosive Badger guard Jonah White to just four points, while also managing a rebounding advantage against Merkel’s sizable front line.
That advantage was especially evident on the offensive end, where many of Jim Ned’s 18 second-half points came off second-chance opportunities.
“We want to get the ball to Dylan Bryant as much as we can,” Phelps said. “He does a great job inside, and he did a great job (Friday) of rebounding and crashing the boards. Those second-chance points are big because they battle for possession and when we get the rebound and put it back, it kind of frustrates them and takes the air out of them a little bit.”
Now alone atop the 5-3A standings, Jim Ned will try to maintain its lead Tuesday when it travels to Clyde to start the second round of district games.
“Going 1-0 12 times is our goal, and we’ve done that six times so far,” Phelps said. “Tuesday when we go to Clyde, we’ll try to do that again. The challenge, and we tell these guys, we’ve won district back to back, and the target’s on our back. We’re going to get the best every night from everybody, and we have to be ready for that. It was no different (Friday night) with two unbeaten teams.”
Merkel, meanwhile, will try to get back on track Tuesday when it opens the second half of district action with a home game against Stanton.
“At 5-1, you could ask to be 6-0, and we’d love to be that at the end of the night, but these guys compete for me every day,” Lee said. “I feel like any time they step on the floor, they’re going to give it their all. We’ll take 5-1 and we’re hoping to be 6-0 next round.”
Jim Ned girls hold off furious Merkel rally
Leading 42-30 with just over three minutes remaining in the game, it appeared the Jim Ned girls would cruise to a comfortable win over Merkel on Tuesday. As it turned out, they’d need a favorable bounce and some clutch free throws to hold off the youthful Lady Badgers 44-40.
Merkel closed the game on a 10-2 run and had a layup attempt for the tie in the waning seconds, but Kaydi Pursley went just a little too hard off the backboard. This allowed Libby Tutt to ice the win with a couple of free throws with just over six seconds to play.
“Merkel did a good job getting back in the game,” Jim Ned coach Hunter Cooley said. “We had a couple of bad turnovers that led to easy transition buckets for them and that never bodes well for you when you do that.
“But that being said, I thought our kids’ mettle shined through right there. It got pretty tight, and you could just kind of see, ‘That’s it. We’re going to refocus,’ and I thought we did a good job of finishing the game.”
Jim Ned raced out to a 23-9 lead and led 30-18 at halftime. And after the Lady Badgers pulled within six points (35-29) with less than a minute remaining in the third, the Lady Indians used a couple of 3-pointers to push the lead back to double digits early in the fourth.
It stayed there until the 3:07 mark, when Merkel got hot from the field and used several Jim Ned turnovers to get back in the game.
Jenna Moore led Jim Ned with 11 points, hitting three of Jim Ned’s eight 3-pointers, while Brooke Galvin scored nine, Tutt eight and Taylor Benton seven.
Pursley paced Merkel with a game-high 16 points, followed by Alyssa O’Malley’s eight and Alaunna White’s six.
Though her team was unable to complete the comeback, Merkel coach Laura Lange said there was much to be gained from Friday’s performance.
“We had the shot we were looking for and we had all the confidence in the world in our kiddos to do it,” Lange said. “I told them we control what we can control, and we put ourselves in a great position to tie the game up.
“I can’t brag on my kids enough about their heart and their fight and their desire. I think we were down by 12 at one point, maybe even more than that. And just to see our relentlessness to fight our way back into it, I’m super proud of them and their efforts.”
BOYS
DISTRICT 5-3A
JIM NED 39, MERKEL 25
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Final | ||
| Merkel | 2 | 9 | 10 | 4 | — | 25 |
| Jim Ned | 9 | 12 | 10 | 8 | — | 39 |
Merkel (15-7, 5-1) — Jonah White 2 0-2 4, Tryce Pape 1 0-0 3, Tyrell White-Oneal 2 0-2 4, Jayden Foss 1 0-2 2, Slade Stone 4 0-0 12, Dillon Davis 0 0-0 0, Garin Walters 0 0-0 0, Daniel Rush 0 0-0 0. Totals 10 0-6 25.
Jim Ned (18-5, 6-0) — Ethan Senne 3 0-0 7, Dylan Martin 0 0-0 0, Cade Ford 4 0-0 11, Caden Burke 1 0-0 2, Dylan Bryant 7 1-3 15, Rhett May 0 0-0 0, Tyler Heath 0 0-0 0, Cortland Baum 0 0-0 0, Caden Martin 1 0-0 2, Alex Rosales 0 0-0 0, Matt Stewart 0 0-0 0, Kade Kimmel 1 0-0 2. Totals 17 1-3 39.
3-Point Goals — Merkel 5 (Pape 1, Stone 4); Jim Ned 4 (Seene 1, Ford 3). Fouled Out — None. Technical Fouls — None. Total Fouls — Merkel 3; Jim Ned 8.
GIRLS
DISTRICT 5-3A
JIM NED 44, MERKEL 40
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | Final | ||
| Merkel | 7 | 11 | 12 | 10 | — | 40 |
| Jim Ned | 12 | 18 | 5 | 9 | — | 44 |
Merkel (14-12, 5-3) — Kaydi Pursley 6 1-4 16, Alyssa White 1 3-4 5, Kinzi Hays 1 0-0 3, Alyssa O’Malley 3 0-0 8, Alaunna White 3 0-0 6, Callie Freeman 0 0-0 0, Sydnee Gilbreath 1 0-0 2. Totals 15 4-8 40.
Jim Ned (24-5, 8-0) — Taylor Benton 2 2-4 7, Jenna Moore 4 0-0 11, Alexis Espinosa 2 0-0 4, Libby Tutt 2 3-4 8, Brooke Galvin 3 1-2 9, Carter Gomez 0 0-0 0, Claire Graham 1 2-4 5. Totals 14 8-14 44.
3-Point Goals — Merkel 6 (Pursley 3, Hays 1, O’Malley 2); Jim Ned 8 (Benton 1, Moore 3, Tutt 1, Galvin 2, Graham 1). Fouled Out — None. Technical Fouls — None. Total Fouls — Merkel 10; Jim Ned 7.