JASPER — Some of Jasper’s shots at the start of Thursday’s game against Barr-Reeve didn’t go, but the floodgates opened, with eight 3-pointers leading to a 46-30 victory.
The Wildcats (11-6) trailed the Vikings (10-8), 9-7, for a bit before halftime before quick baskets by junior Will Wallace gave them the lead for good at 11-9. Seniors Carter Mundy and Charlie Kabrick made threes to bring the game to its halftime score of 17-9, and things only expanded from there.
“I thought every shot we took (in the first quarter) was a good shot, and they just weren’t going down for us and sometimes that happens,” Wildcats coach John Goebel said. “But the good news for us is we didn’t panic — we kept our energy and our defense, we kept getting stops, which if you’re going to hold a good team to 30 points, you’re going to have a chance to win. But right there at the end of the first half, some of those open shots started going down for us.”
Jasper’s run pushed to 15-0 into the third quarter when Kabrick drained another 3-pointer at 22-9. He finished with a game-high 13 points, with nine of those points coming from downtown. Barr-Reeve itself knocked down a few triples, including one from junior Braydon Knepp, one that trimmed Jasper’s lead to 22-14, but even though the Vikings got the score into single digits multiple times in the second half, Jasper found a way to keep its foot on the gas.
Barr-Reeve tried to crawl its way back into things, with Jasper holding a 35-27 lead on the Vikings, but Mundy and fellow senior Grant Young had a couple of big-time triples in quick succession to push Jasper’s lead to 41-27. The Wildcats went on an 11-3 run to close the game out after the Vikings narrowed their lead to 35-27.
“They hit tough shots — so we were forcing them to hit tough shots and that’s all we could ask for,” Goebel said. “I thought our defense, minus a couple of breakdowns — which you’ll have in a game, I thought our defensive focus was really good. I thought we helped early, I thought we rotated well, I thought we rebounded really well.”
This gave Jasper its third win a row, and seventh in its last eight games. The Wildcats have today to practice for and get ready for their scheduled Saturday game at Heritage Hills. Sophomore Trent Sisley was averaging 28.6 points per game heading into Thursday’s showdown at Pocket Athletic Conference rival Boonville, but the Patriots came into Thursday’s game with the Pioneers on a three-game skid and having lost four out of its last six — even with Sisley bringing the scoring production, though Heritage Hills got back in the win column, 56-52, Thursday.
Jasper’s Thursday opponent, Barr-Reeve, has just one senior in Karsen Boyd, and Goebel noted how the Pats are like the Vikings because they, too, have a lot of young players. The 16th-year coach knows Sisley is a game changer, and later added Jasper will have to give him a lot of defensive attention to have a chance on Saturday.
“We’re to be aware of where Trent is, we’ll have to block him off the boards, we’ll have to make him earn his points — you’re not going to shut him out, but you have to make him earn his points,” he said. “And then you also have to be aware of the other guys, too. We’re going to have to be smart — we can’t have five guys guarding one, obviously, so we’re going to have to be aware of where their players are and be able to close out on their shooters and hopefully, get some misses and get some rebounds.”
Jasper 46, Barr-Reeve 30
JASPER: Kabrick 5 0 13; Mundy 3 2 10; Wallace 3 1 7; Giesler 2 0 5; Young 2 0 5; Noblitt 1 0 3; Hile 1 1 3
3-Point Field Goals: Jasper 8 (Kabrick 3, Mundy 2, Young 1, Noblitt 1, Giesler 1)
BARR-REEVE: S. Wagler 3 0 7; D. Miller 3 0 7; Knepp 2 1 6; Graber 1 2 5; Kavanaugh 1 0 3; Boyd 1 0 2
Free Throws: Jasper 4-6 (Mundy 2-2, Wallace 1-2, Hile 1-2, Young 0-1), Barr-Reeve 3-4 (Graber 2-2, Knepp 1-2)
Team Fouls: Jasper 11, Barr-Reeve 11
Jasper: Foy 5 5 19; Seger 3 2 10; Fischer 2 0 6; Day 1 0 2; Erny 1 0 2; Kunz 1 0 2
Barr-Reeve: Kavanaugh 3 2 10; Madison 2 4 8; Pauw 3 2 8; Stoll 2 0 6; A. Wagler 1 0 2; L. Miller 1 0 2
