Jay Neal
Jacksonville Progress
TYLER — Paris Junior College, seeded No. 1, blew a close game wide open in the second half by preventing Jacksonville College from making a single shot from the field during a 14-minute span as the Dragons defeated the No. 9-seeded Jaguars by a final score of 70-52.
The game was a quarterfinal contest in the Region XIV Basketball Championship, which is being staged at UT-Tyler’s Herrington Center.
After trailing 28-27 at intermission, JC (16-17) moved in front of the highly-favored Dragons, 37-35, when Bryce Hill drained a shot at the 16:42 mark of the final half.
It would be over 14 minutes before the Jags would be able to connect from the field again as Paris (26-5), who has now won 16 of their last 18 outings, in general and Latay Darden in particular, put on a defensive clinic for the 412 fans and a couple of dozen of college coaches in attendance.
Darden had nine blocks, 10 rebounds and scored two points, to lead the Dragons on the defense end.
JC’s dry spell finally came to a close when Erik Martin nailed a jumper with 2:13 to play in the game, but by that time the damage had been done as the Dragons, who are ranked No. 14 in the latest NJCAA poll, owned a 66-50 lead.
Martin paced JC in scoring with 15 points, followed by Hill with seven — Hill also contributed a team-best eight boards.
The Dragon defense held JC to just 26.9-percent (7-of-26) from the field in the second half — 16-of-51 (31.4-percent) for the game.
The Jags turned the ball over 18 times with the Dragons scoring 23 points off of JC mistakes.
JC’s biggest lead came with 13:53 to play in the opening half when the Jags led 14-9 following a 14-foot jumper by Gary Roberson. Roberson ended up with seven points and seven boards in the game.
With the Dragons up 28-22, JC scored the last five points of the opening frame as Roberson hit a deuce with 1:33 left and Hill buried a triple from the left wing as the buzzer sounded which pulled the Jags to within a point and seemingly shifted the momentum over to JC.
A basket from point-blank range by Eric Kibi to open the final period moved JC to the lead (29-28) with the teams battling on even terms up until the Jags succumbed to the Dragon defensive stand.
Bryce Cartwright led the Dragons in scoring with a game-high 19 points; nine of his points came from beyond the arc.
Demarkus Wilson and Desmond King each pumped in 11 for Paris.
