St. Pius X senior guard Jalen Thornton broke the Jefferson defense down off the dribble as he slashed through the paint, carrying Blue Jays with him.
It’s Thornton’s signature move, and it’s hard to stop. Twice he went to the free-throw line in the fourth quarter on Friday of the see-saw boys basketball game at St. Pius after being fouled on drives to the rim.
With 10 seconds to go and Jefferson leading 42-41, Thornton had the ball at the top of the key and the packed gym roared in anticipation of his next move. He dribbled inside the 3-point arc, suddenly pulled up and sank the game-winning shot in the Lancers’ 43-42 victory in the Jefferson County Activities Association small-schools division game.
St. Pius improved to 17-7 overall and finished tied for second in the league with the Blue Jays (15-8) at 3-2. St. Vincent finished 5-0 and won the division championship.
“They gave me the space. I believed I could make the shot, so I pulled up,” Thornton said. “I’ve been in the gym practicing and (the shot) fell down.”
Thornton scored after a timeout where St. Pius head coach Eric Lawrence drew the play up.
“I looked at Jalen, he’s a senior and he made a big shot for us,” Lawrence said. “He’s done a very good job this year of getting everyone involved and not forcing the issue. They sagged off and big-time players make big-time plays.”
Jefferson head coach Sean Breeze has seen enough of Thornton as coach of the Blue Jays and Crystal City to know he had to honor the possibility he was going inside.
“Unfortunately when you play off of him, you leave open shots, and good players hit those,” Breeze said. “I thought we did a good job most of the night not letting him get to the rim, but give all credit to him, it was a great shot.”
After Thornton’s bucket there was still time for one more big play. But Jefferson didn’t get the ball across the timeline until there was just one second left in the game. They called two timeouts to figure out the best way to get off a desperation shot.
Senior guard Easton Null beat the Lancers with a last-second 3-point basket in a 57-54 Blue Jays’ win almost exactly one year earlier. That fact is never far from Lawrence’s mind. But this time, after he received senior guard Erik Eisenbeis’ inbounds pass at midcourt, Null wasn’t in a good shooting position and his long heave didn’t find the mark.
The Blue Jays’ best gambit was to try to get the ball to red-hot shooter Jon Weik near the rim, but a perfect pass was required. Weik scored eight straight points to close out the third and open the fourth quarters to tie the game 32-32. Weik scored a game-high 23 points.
“We wanted to catch Jon on a lob near the rim, but they had (6-5 St. Pius senior Luke Klahs) back there and Erik was having trouble seeing (Weik), so let’s go to Easton and let him do his thing,” Breeze said. “We do practice those scenarios and try to find the best way to get the ball in Easton’s hands.
“We would have liked to get the ball up the floor quicker on the inbounds with eight seconds left but took too much time. The St. Pius defense held us in check all night.”
Weik was deadly using a hook shot from various angles and distances from the goal. Null leads Jefferson in scoring with 20.7 points per game and Weik checks in at 17.5.
“Jon got into a groove inside,” Breeze said. “He releases (the hook shot) so high, it’s hard to stop. He has been making that shot a lot the second half of the season.”
St. Pius lost its leading scorer for the season when junior swingman Riley Naeger (6-7) broke his wrist in two places in a 49-43 conference loss to Herculaneum on Feb. 6. In the fourth quarter, Naeger was finishing a slam dunk when he slipped and fell, landing on his wrist. He was averaging 16 points per game and the only Lancer to top double-digit scoring for the season.
In Naeger’s absence, Lawrence promoted 6-5 sophomore forward Zander Parsons to the varsity. Lawrence needed his new big to be a presence on the last play of the game. He had no second thoughts about who was getting the ball. Naeger was dominant in the two teams’ first meeting this season with Jefferson when he scored 16 points and pulled down 13 boards in the Lancers’ 53-48 win in the final of the Grandview Tournament in December.
“We figured it was going to Easton,” Lawrence said. “That’s how they got us last year. Initially, it looked like they were trying to get a tip at the rim to Jon (Weik). Because there was a second left, it was going to be hard for Easton to catch and shoot.
“That’s why we brought Zander up today. I had a big body standing there.”
Lawrence said it’s important for Naeger to stay involved with everything the team does.
“I challenged him to be a part of the team the rest of the year, and I didn’t question he wouldn’t be,” Lawrence said. “I’d like him to play the role of student-coach for us. He’s one of the smartest players on the team and during timeouts he was doing a good job tonight.”
Like Naeger, Parsons showed he could be a weapon on the outside as he made two 3-point shots in the second quarter to help boost the St. Pius lead to 10 points. Junior guard Josh Ruble was a consistent scorer throughout the game for the Lancers and chipped in 16 points.
St. Pius and Jefferson could meet one more time this season if they both reach the championship of the Class 3 District 3 Tournament, which begins Saturday. The Blue Jays are hosting the tournament and are the No. 2 seed. The Lancers are the top seed.
Dragons’ Boyer relaxing after surpassing 1,000 points
With 1,000 points in the bank, Kendall Boyer can enjoy the dividends of the rest of her senior season.
She said she’s glad the run up to reaching 1,000 career points for De Soto is over.
“I’m excited, but it’s kind of like, now I can just play,” said Boyer, who scored a game-high 16 points to lead the Dragons to a 48-21 victory over visiting Hillsboro on Thursday. “It means a lot to me, but now I don’t have to look forward to getting to that point.”
Boyer was recognized before the game as the ninth player in team history to reach 1,000 career points. The 6-0 forward achieved the milestone on Monday in a loss to Festus. Boyer has scored 1,034 points in her career to date.
She’s the first to score 1,000 points at De Soto since Kelsey Kingsland in 2015. Kingsland completed her final season playing volleyball in 2018 at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
“We’re coming up on 45 years of De Soto basketball and (Boyer’s 1,000 points) shows that hard work does pay off,” De Soto head coach Sam Rauls said. “It shows where the program has come from and where it’s going to go. Every once in awhile a special player comes through and we have to make sure we do everything we can to recognize them.”
The Dragons improved to 12-9 overall and concluded play in the Jefferson County Activities Association large-schools division with a mark of 2-2.
De Soto held Hillsboro to fewer than 10 points in all four quarters and the game was played with a running clock in the fourth. Boyer scored the final basket of the first and second quarters. Her points from the field came from layups, jump shots and breaking down the defense off the dribble.
Rauls said many teams are unaware of Boyer’s full complement of skills.
“I think that’s what surprises a lot of coaches who don’t scout us when she hits the (3-point shot) and they’re like, ‘Where did that come from?’ ” Rauls said. “They realize pretty quick she can shoot so they better go guard her.”
Sophomore Payton Bingman sank a 3-point basket for Hillsboro with 5:05 left in the first half. It was the Hawks’ only points in the second quarter.
“We watched a lot of film on them, so we knew how to stop them,” Boyer said. “We learned how to stop their inbounds plays and other (plays) so they couldn’t score.”
Boyer made a trey with 5:48 left in the third to give the Dragons a 35-9 lead. Sophomore Zoe Wood answered with a basket for Hillsboro before senior Emily Smith and juniors Madyson Young and Sarah Bone all scored consecutive buckets for the Dragons to increase their lead to 42-11.
Senior Kaitlyn McGinnitey started the fourth with a steal and a basket for De Soto and Boyer followed with a pair of free throws to make it 46-13. McGinnitey finished with 10 points. Rauls yanked his starters and played the bench the rest of the game.
De Soto feasted on Hillsboro mistakes throughout the game, although the Hawks did a good job of not allowing second shots by the Dragons with solid defensive rebounding.
“I know (Hillsboro head coach Joe Fehlker) has a young team and those kinds of teams are going to make mistakes,” Rauls said. “Our goal was to let our seniors take the lead and put the pressure on their players and force them to make turnovers for easy buckets.
“I told the girls at halftime we were not playing De Soto basketball. All of our energy was at Festus on Monday.”
De Soto is the only JCAA school to play in Class 4 District 2 at North County in Bonne Terre. The ultra-tough district has the host Raiders, Park Hills Central, Farmington, Potosi and Ste. Genevieve. The Dragons are 1-2 against teams in that district this season and play Ste. Genevieve on Wednesday.
Hillsboro (4-18, 1-3) capped off its large-schools schedule on Wednesday with a 37-30 victory over Windsor. Sophomore Kenzie Baker and junior Elaina Readnour each scored 10 points against the Owls. Readnour scored a team-high nine points against De Soto.
The Hawks are hosting Class 4 District 3.