Jacksboro sweeps past Paradise

Get the brooms out.

For the first time in more than a month, Jacksboro’s boys and girls basketballers b oth picked up wins on the same night vs. visiting Paradise Tuesday evening. The boys posgted a 62-56 victory with the Tigerettes defeating Paradise in a second-place battle 41-29.

Summaries of both games follow:

Tigers 62, Paradise 56

Despite nine three pointers from the visitors, Jacksboro wasable to get oits offense working down the stretch and overcame a furious comeback by the Panthers to split the season series. Tiger Coach Eric Symank said it was a  good feeling to get the win.

“Almost forgot what that felt like,” Symank joked after wtching his troops snap a seven-game losing skid to go to 2-10 in District 8-3A and 11-19 overall. “We got enough offense in the third and midway through the fourth where we were able to play with a lead, which caused some of the problems as we weren’t used to it.”

Jacksboro led by 12 in the fourth but Paradise went to its bread and butter from beyond the arc, taking advantage of Jacksboro turnovers, to get within four with 28 seconds left. Paradise continued to fire from downtown only to have Dalton Harp come up with big rebounds twice late. He then a pair of freethrows to put the game on ice.

Paradise converted four three-pointers in the opening frame to take a 15-9 lead. The Tigers held tough with buckets from Clay Botello, Ke’Ondrae Sadler and Harp to take the lead for the first time late in the half and enter halftime with a 28-26 lead.

 Paradise tied the game before three-pointers from Laake and Tyler Rogers put the lead at six late in the third. Free throws by Laake and a Harp bucket put the lead into double figures before Paradise mounted its comeback.

Laake paced Jacksboro with 19 points. Rogers had 14 with Botello and Sadler adding nine each.

Tigerettes 41, Paradise 29

Jacksboro got out to a slow start but began to turn things around in the second quarter.

The win puts Jacksboro at 12-2 in district and 27-6 overall with Paradise dropping to 10-4 and 19-12.

The Lady Panthers led 10-3 at one point early before going on an nearly five minute scoring drought, missing their last eight shots of the first quarter. Jacksboro used buckets by posts Baylee Thompson and Jaymee Yount to get within one late in the first and a Kaylea Maples three-pointer to tie the game at 12. From there it was all Tigerettes, who led 20-17 at the half, a half where they shot 42 percent from the field (8-19).

Yount’s basket and free throw along with a Thompson basket and free throws put the hostesses up 26-18. Paradise would get wthin three before a neat Thompson putback gave Jacksboro a 28-23 lead heading into the final frame.

Thompson had 18 points and nine rebounds for the victors.

No playoff information for the girls was available at the time of this posting. The boys play at Henrietta Friday.