At least not by any team – large or small – in the Jefferson County Activities Association.
Just ask Jefferson head coach Sean Breeze, who watched helplessly as Brewer and Hillsboro steamrolled the Blue Jays 58-36 in the final game of the JCAA Shootout on Saturday at Jefferson College. Brewer scored a game-high 24 points and muscled up for 13 rebounds, 10 on the defensive boards.
“You’ve got to roll another defender over just to help, but once he catches it there’s not a whole lot you can do because he jumps so high in the air you can’t contest his shot,” Breeze said. “He’s one of the better athletes we’ll see. He is a beast. That’s the best word I can use to describe him. His foundation is so strong, once he catches the ball, you hope he misses the shot and then try to block him out.”
Good luck with that. Hillsboro head coach Dan Johnson said Brewer is looking to drive to the rim instead of trying to play with his back to the basket.
“If our guards continue to shoot it well, Michael will get his space and (the opposition) is going to have to take away one or the other,” Johnson said. “Michael’s that tough ‘big’ with guard skills. He’s a monster at the rim, but he can also shoot it.”
Jefferson senior Easton Null, the two-time JCAA small-schools player of the year, watched the start of the game from the bench and didn’t check in until about two minutes remained in the first quarter. Null leads the Blue Jays with 22 points per game. Breeze said Null didn’t start because of “practice issues” but didn’t explain further.
Null played the rest of the game, but was never a factor offensively and finished with nine points.
“When he got in, his rhythm was off,” Breeze said. “We reverted back to what we wanted to get away from the beginning of the year, where our possessions are very slow and we couldn’t hit any shots. We average nine 3s a game and had two today, neither from Easton or Jon (Weik).”
“We planned for Easton and Jon, but once (Null) didn’t start it was Weik and whoever the next shooter is,” Johnson said. “That didn’t change our plan any. We saw (Null) was in his uniform, so we assumed he would play.”
Once Null entered the game, it became more competitive as the Hawks outscored the Blue Jays 11-8 in the second quarter. Brewer picked up his second foul with 2:54 left in the half and Johnson rested him until the third quarter.
Senior Daniel McWhorter got a steal for Jefferson at midcourt and found Null, who passed to a wide-open Erik Eisenbeis for a basket with 1.8 seconds left in the half. McWhorter made a 3-point shot in the fourth and had seven points.
“He’s the guy in the trenches everywhere. He works his butt off,” Breeze said of McWhorter. “He’s got good hands and quick feet. He had a slow start to the season but he played very well tonight.”
Hillsboro has something most teams don’t: two point guards on the court at the same time. Senior Ben Lampkins and junior Mark Moore are friends on and off the court and their symbiotic relationship puts pressure on the opposition from end to end. Neither guard is content to just feed Brewer underneath and both are willing to take it to the basket at any time.
Lampkins made five 3-point buckets for his 15 points. Moore added 11 points.
“We’ve known each other for a long time and been good friends so we can read each other’s minds, which is pretty cool to always know what the other person’s doing,” Moore said. “I might be better inside, but Ben can shoot the crap out of it. He’s probably the best shooter I’ve ever seen.”
Johnson said having Lampkins and Moore on the floor at the same time is a luxury.
“That has to be hard to scout if you’re the opposing team,” Johnson said. “Whichever one is closest will catch the outlet pass. The other one will run up the floor. They both can shoot it or drive it and they’re good passers. That triggers our offense.”
Johnson said the Hawks are hard to stop offensively if they use both sides of the court. Hillsboro won two other games last week, over Ste. Genevieve (66-49) and North County (66-44). Lampkins had four 3s and 25 points at Ste. Gen.
“When we play bad, we go one-on-five offensively and we’ve got enough weapons that if we go side to side touching the open man every time we’re going to score enough points to win,” he said.
Snudden snuffs out St. Pius
De Soto senior Clayton Snudden scored 18 of his team-high 20 points in the fourth quarter against St. Pius X to lead the Dragons to a 58-57 victory in the JCAA Shootout on Saturday at Jefferson College.
The Lancers went into halftime on a 9-0 run, but De Soto played its best third quarter of the year and followed that up with an 8-0 scoring streak in the fourth.
“Our third quarter this year has been our worst, so we tried to turn that around,” Snudden said. “Shots started falling and our defense stepped up.”
The Dragons’ play in the third quarter was so bad, head coach Zeb Hammond said, he wondered if he should stop talking to his players at the break.
“The third quarter has been our nemesis,” Hammond said. “We’ve come out flat (in the third quarter) every time. But tonight they battled. Then the switch flipped, shots started falling and we started playing harder. This is the first time we didn’t back down from adversity this year.”
Snudden found the 3-point range from the baseline and kept firing until De Soto had erased the Lancers’ 10-point halftime lead. Snudden’s two treys within two minutes midway through the fourth quarter knotted the score at 45-45.
“They were pressuring me the whole game and I was having trouble getting my shot off,” Snudden said. “But you’ve got to keep on pushing, and I hit one (3-point shot) and they kept falling from there. I don’t remember all of it. It’s kind of a blur.”
St. Pius junior forward Riley Naeger (6-7) scored a game-high 24 points and he followed Snudden’s second 3-pointer with a basket and the Lancers went back ahead 47-45. Snudden answered with another trey to put the Dragons back on top by a point, then made two free throws after drawing a blocking foul.
Leading by three, Snudden was again at the free-throw line with a chance to extend De Soto’s lead. He missed the first half of a one-and-one, sophomore forward Jordan Mertens (12 points) grabbed the rebound and the ball ended up going out of bounds on St. Pius. After the inbound pass, senior guard Camren Krodinger assisted on a basket by senior Andrew Downs to give the Dragons (5-5) a 53-47 lead with 1:04 left.
“We left Clayton open for a couple big 3s and all week I’ve been saying don’t leave No. 22 open and we did in key situations,” St. Pius head coach Eric Lawrence said.
Senior Jalen Thornton made an old-fashioned 3-point play with a bucket and free throw after he was fouled on a nice spin move in the paint. That cut
De Soto’s lead to 53-50 with 35 seconds left. Thornton finished with nine points after he fouled out with 11 seconds left on a charging call.
“Jalen’s getting frustrated. He’s been a starter for me for four years,” Lawrence said. “Teams are ultimately trying to take him out of the game. He’s a senior and a captain and needs to step up and do what’s best for the team and not force the issue.”
Naeger’s left-handed layup with 25 seconds to go again made it a one-possession contest, but Krodinger sank a free throw to push the De Soto lead to four. St. Pius junior Kayden Cook was fouled as he scored with 16 seconds left, and he made the free throw. The Dragons led 56-55 and it felt like anything could happen. Snudden and Krodinger couldn’t put the game away from the foul line, making two of four free throws in the final 16 seconds.
Lawrence called timeout with 4.8 seconds left, the Lancers trailing by three points and with possession at midcourt. Junior Eli Boyer made a two-point basket at the buzzer for St. Pius, which fell to 4-3.
“They’re a great team with great players,” Hammond said. “I knew they were quicker than us, but we had a defensive game plan and we stuck to it. We let some people shoot the ball at will and it paid off for us.”
Naeger made 10 of 12 shots from the field and was able to shoot accurately with both hands.
“Riley, flat out, bottom line, is our best offensive basketball player,” Lawrence said. “A kid shooting at that rate needs to touch the ball more.
“I feel like that was a game we should have won and could have won and if it happens again we would win.”
Perryville, Festus, Windsor, North County win
Quarter by quarter, Perryville squeezed the offensive life out of Grandview in the first game of the Shootout until the Eagles were held scoreless in the fourth quarter of a 59-19 defeat.
After scoring 13 points in a relatively competitive first quarter, Grandview (1-8) scored four points in the second, two in the third and were shut out in the fourth. Senior Noah Richardson scored 10 of the Eagles’ 19 points. Perryville senior Jeff Reisenbichler made three 3-pointers, had eight points in the first and finished with a game-high 17 points. Senior Chase Brown scored 16 points for the Pirates.
Seven Festus players scored in the first as the Tigers ran out to a 22-7 lead over Herculaneum. Festus (5-2) never looked back in a 70-33 victory and has won four straight games.
Eleven Tigers scored against the Blackcats. Freshman guard Cole Rickermann led the way with 12 points. Sophomore Austin Anderson made three 3s and scored 10 points for Festus.
Herculaneum sophomore Josh Moreland scored a game-high 19 points.
Four Windsor players – Connor Hartmann (21 points), Pierce Hartmann (12), Justin Van Etten (12) and Aaron Harrison (10) – tallied in double figures as the Owls (4-5) clobbered Crystal City 81-57. Junior Nate Denby led the Hornets with 13 points and junior Drew Richardon and sophomore Donovan Tullock each contributed 10 points for Crysta lCity (3-6).
Senior John Starkey made a shot at the buzzer to give North County a 47-45 victory over St. Vincent. Starkey had 10 points, while sophomore Karter Kekec led the Raiders with 20 points.