For the first half of Tuesday’s game at Bulldog Arena, nothing would go right for the Jay Bulldogs, and nothing could go wrong for the Grove Ridgerunners.
The second half was just the opposite, as the Bulldogs rallied from a 25-10 halftime deficit for a 51-47 win on Tuesday, splitting the season series with their county rivals.
For the first two-and-a-half quarters, the Ridgerunners (5-12) dominated, using a 14-2 second quarter run to lead 25-8 at the 2:30 mark of the second quarter.
Spencer Londagin led the Ridgerunners with 10 of his 16 points in the first half, with Ty Phillips adding 7 points and Jake Spychalski six as Grove took a 15-point lead into the break.
“It was like, they couldn’t do anything wrong, and we couldn’t do anything right,” Jay head coach Terry Sweeney said of the first half. “We knew what they were going to do and they still did it. They executed perfectly in everything they did.”
The Bulldogs (12-7) began to get their offense rolling in the third quarter, doubling their score in the first five minutes of the period. But Grove, with another pair of threes from Londagin, was able to match the scoring and still led 34-20 with just over three minutes left in the quarter.
After that, it was all Jay. The Bulldogs would close the gap to 37-28 by the beginning of the fourth, then scored 10 straight in less than two minutes to take a stunning 38-37 lead after Jordan Sweeney’s three-point play.
But it was Will Robertson who led the charge offensively in the second half. After scoring just two points in the first half, Robertson knocked down a pair threes in the third then hit three more as part of a 13-point fourth quarter.
“Robertson is a catch-and-shoot guy,” Grove head coach Zach Trimble said. “We tried to make him put in on the floor and we didn’t do that in the second half. I think he’s the key to their success on offense. Sweeney’s going to get his, Foster’s going to get his, so if they get that third scorer, and it’s usually Robertson, Jay is hard to beat.”
“We made it a full-court game and just played transition basketball,” Sweeney said of the second half. “Trapping, pressure, where they couldn’t execute half-court. They’re a half-court team. We wanted to attack, push as hard as we could and crash the boards. We just played relentless.”
The Ridgerunners righted the ship somewhat after Jay’s big run. Spychalski answered Sweeney’s three-point play with a driving layup to retake the lead with just under six minutes left, then gave Grove a 43-41 lead with two free throws at the five-minute mark, scoring eight of his team-high 16 points in the final period.
Spychalski tied the game at 47 with two free throws with 56 seconds left, but Garrett Mack put Jay ahead for good with a baseline jumper with 34 ticks on the clock, and Robertson knocked down a pair of free throws to end the game with 8 seconds left.
“We played really well [in the first half],” Trimble said. “We stuck to the game plan and executed really well. I thought we would come out [in the second half] and execute just like we had in the first. It just didn’t go our way.”
Robertson finished with 21 points to lead all scorers, while Sweeney added 14, 10 of those coming in the second half. Sweeney also had 10 rebounds, as the Bulldogs outrebounded Grove 31-22 in winning their fourth game in a row.
The Ridgerunners have now dropped five straight.
