Jackson Center’s Carter Klopfenstein finishes a tough layup over 6’4″ Russia defender Michael Voisard. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Logan Howard)
Jackson Center’s defense roared to life in the second half, giving up just 10 points to help secure a win over conference foe Russia. Carter Klopfenstein led all scorers with 19 points.
Jackson Center, OH – It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish, as the cliche goes. And here’s another: Defense wins championships.
Well, it’s too early to crown champions, but combining and executing those two sayings made Jackson Center winners Friday night, which is plenty good for now. The Tigers allowed just 10 points on three field goals in the second half to claim a 46-39 win against Russia. The Tigers improved to 2-1 (1-0 SCAL) while Russia slid to 1-2 (1-2 SCAL).
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Defense will make or break plenty of games for Jackson Center this season. They may not touch the 60s often, but more than likely, they won’t need to. After the Raiders notched 29 in the first half, you would’ve thought there was no way 46 points would do the job for the Tigers. But they executed on defense for a relentless 16 minutes, and 46 proved ample.
“I just felt like our guys responded,” Jackson Center coach Aaron Klopfenstein said. “They got challenged at halftime. We were talking about how we can make adjustments, but they’re the ones who have to implement it, and they’re the ones who came out with energy.”
The seven-point margin at the final horn marked the biggest lead for either team.
“We’re a strong-willed team,” said Carter Klopfenstein, JC’s leading scorer. “That’s what’s great about us. We talked amongst ourselves at halftime about coming out and going on a run. We knew we were with them. We just had to come out with intensity.”
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Due to the less-than-fiery first half on defense, Jackson Center trailed 29-23 at half, but bulled its way to a 10-0 run to open the third quarter, putting the inexperienced Russia squad under tremendous pressure in a boisterous environment.
Carter Klopfenstein takes Russia’s Michael Voisard to the paint during the Tigers’ Friday SCL win over the Raiders.
“They did a nice job taking away what was working for us in the first half,” first-year Russia head coach Devin Limburg said. “We didn’t adjust too well to what they were giving us by taking that away.”
On the road to 46 points, what the Tigers’ offense lacked in aesthetics, it made up for in efficacy in big moments. Sporadic wouldn’t be an unjust adjective, but when they needed a bucket, they got a bucket.
“We like to slow the pace down and play our game,” sophomore sharpshooter Brendan Serr said. “In the first half, we were kinda rushing it; in the second half we slowed down and got our shots.”
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“Our shots,” often meant shots by Carter Klopfenstein, who led all scorers with 19 points, nearly all from the paint or the free-throw line. He’s not the biggest forward you’ll watch in the SCAL this year at 6-foot-3, but he could lay claim to superlatives like meanest or most menacing. When he got the ball in the paint, he did what he wanted, how he wanted, when he wanted.
“Carter’s a confident guy,” Coach Klopfenstein said. “We knew he was gonna be a leader for us coming in, and he’s responded well.”
When Russia rallied and recaptured the lead late in the third quarter, he battled for an offensive rebound that caused Russia’s Cooper Unverferth to commit his fourth foul. Klopfenstein nailed both free throws to regain the lead at 35-34, and the Tigers guarded it the rest of the way.
Jackson Center led 42-39 with under a minute to play, and nearly threw the ball out of bounds. But Dane Reese saved it, and Klopfenstein was there again to scoop it up, barrel into the lane, and push the lead to a pair of scores with 40 seconds left.
Serr, a sophomore guard, added 13 points, including a pair of 3-pointers that kept the game tight in the second quarter.
Jackson Center’s Brendan Serr tries to fly by his defender to the hole.
The elder Preston Serr scored eight points.
Ian Stengel came off the bench for the Tigers, and both head coaches called him a sparkplug on the defensive side. He frequently got switched into a matchup in the low post against Russia’s Grant Bergman, who has a five-inch advantage on Stengel. But the Raiders seldom found the entry pass to Bergman, and on the occasion they did, and a score appeared imminent, Stengel stripped the ball away before Bergman could take it up.
That was one of a few ways Russia’s offense looked a bit disjointed. Individually, the players were comfortable moving the ball and embracing the slow possessions Jackson Center forced them into. But they struggled to strike cohesively when they got JC out of position or into a bad matchup.
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“We’re still working on how to mesh together,” Limburg said. “Just knowing where to be without us having to call out a certain part of the play, and seeing the looks without us having to call it out. It’s a process. We’re getting better every day. But a lot of things get exposed when you’re young like this.”
With a six-point lead and momentum going into the locker room, the Raiders had a chance to step on JC’s throat in the third. Instead, they committed four turnovers and scored zero points in the first five minutes of the second half.
The Raider faithful are no strangers to 10-0 runs and scads of turnovers, but they’ve been on the other side of the coin for some years now. But given the mass exodus of talent, size and experience, it’s really not fair to compare last year’s team to this year’s, no matter how high the standard at Russia is.
“All of them are still working to figure out the physicality and the speed of the game,” Limburg said.
Russia did itself no favors with 6-of-10 free-throw shooting compared to JC’s 9-of-9, perhaps another symptom of youth in an unfriendly environment.
Here’s another saying: free throws don’t win all games, just all the close ones.
Nonetheless, the squad has talent, and the upside of having inexperience as a primary weakness is that it’s inherently temporary. Expect Russia to be one of the most improved teams from the beginning of December to the end of January.
“These guys work,” Limburg said. “Their work ethic is great. They’re willing to learn and they want to be coached. It’s just a process of seeing it when the game is sped up, and that’s hard to do.”
They defend guards well, and have some shooters to keep any defense honest, including freshman Paxson Bixler, who got Russia rolling early with a pair of threes, and hit another in crunch time to cut JC’s lead to 40-39.
Cooper Unverferth led Russia with 12 points despite serving copious time on the bench for foul trouble.
Russia had the misfortune of opening against three league teams on the road to test the young and inexperienced lineup, but it finally faces a team outside the SCAL on Saturday at home against a gritty Minster team.
Jackson Center wraps up its four-game home stand on Saturday versus Waynesfield-Goshen – a final tune-up before a four-game stretch of conference opponents bridging the end of the year.
“Obviously there are still things to work on,” Klopfenstein said. “[Allowing] 29 points in the first half isn’t gonna get it done long term. But these guys are eager to learn.”
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