The Jay High School boys basketball team concluded their regular season with a 68-51 loss at home against hometown rival Central School on Friday night. The loss brings the Royals regular season to 4-18. However, the team will be playing in their district tournament on Monday night at Freeport against Northview High School.
While the Jaguars maintained the lead throughout the game, Jay applied pressure in the second half.
“We fell into a big hole in the first half,” said Jay Head Coach Jacob Jordan. “We took care of the ball a lot better in the second half.”
Despite the loss, Jordan believes his team has a positive mindset heading into the matchup against Northview, a team they won against this season.
“They are a very athletic team, we just need to come out and play well,” Jordan said.
Regardless of what happens on Monday, Jordan believes his team has matured throughout the season.
“We are a very young team and I think we have grown up quite a bit,” Jordan said. “We just got to build on that.”
Jordan praised the contributions of freshmen players Joseph Cook and Dutch Burkhead. Another big contributor on Friday night was Justice Brewton, who Jordan calls a “team leader.”
“(Brewton) has been our big scorer all year, he has been averaging a little over 20 points a game,” Jordan said.
While regular season concluded on Friday night for the Royals, Central’s regular season ends on Saturday with a road game at Rocky Bayou Christian School in Niceville.
In his first year as head coach for the Jaguars, Wes Mathews was pleased with his team’s performance against Jay.
“We rebounded real well and we won in the hustle plays,” Mathews said. “We were patient on offense, we did not force things except for a few occasions and defensively we did what we could to hold down their shooters and (Jay) has good shooters.”
Central will be heading into their district tournament as the third seed on Tuesday night at home against the sixth seed Poplar Springs High School.
With a 14-10 record as of Friday night, Mathews could only describe his team’s mindset as being confident heading into the post season.
“We got all juniors and seniors, they have been here before,” Mathews said. “They know that we have a big challenge ahead of us.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Basketball: Central holds off Jay, 68-51