ONTARIO — Kyle Jackson scored 20 points in the second half to spearhead Madison’s 64-56 non-league win at Ontario on Friday night.
But the 6-foot-6 senior’s most important basket came near the end of the first half as the Rams (14-8) ended the regular season with their fifth straight win.
“I started out really slow,” Jackson said. “When I was able to hit that pull-up jumper to end the (first) half, that gave me a ton of confidence and I used that in the second half.
“We just did the same thing we have done for the last five games. We kept the energy up and we never gave up.”
Jackson connected on 7 of 10 shots in the second half, including a personal, 11-1 run in just over three minutes at the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth that turned a 37-35 lead into a 48-36 bulge over the Warriors (13-9).
The hard-charging Jackson, named the Ohio Cardinal Conference and Division I District 6 Player of the Year earlier this week, nailed three 15-foot jumpers and a triple during the stretch.
TOO MUCH JACKSON: “Kyle does what he does,” Madison coach Tim Mergel said. “We knew coming in it was going to be tough for him to get started. He was going to draw a lot of attention. This isn’t (Ontario coach Joe Balogh’s) first game.
“I wanted to establish Kyle inside early to at least establish some kind of a threat in there. You knew that Kyle was going to eventually use his ball-handling skills and his perimeter game. I don’t know if that’s four straight pull-up jumpshots, but when he starts getting a few in, you just let him go.”
Balogh knew defending Jackson, who leads the area with 20 points per game this season and broke the Madison single-game scoring record with 43 against Mansfield Senior last week, was a matter of picking your poison.
“He is a very good player. Our approach was we didn’t want him to get ball in the transition and we didn’t want to let him hurt us on the block,” Balogh said. “I think we did a good job of that. We wanted to make him a jump shooter and he hit shots from 15 feet.”
Even after Jackson helped the Rams build a 53-37 lead with 4:59 left in the fourth, Ontario wasn’t done. The Warriors nailed four straight triples and took advantage of Madison misses at the foul line in clawing back to within a four-point deficit with 1:13 remaining.
That’s when Madison senior Cal Rickert broke Madison’s streak of five misses at the line. After that, the Rams connected on 8 of 10 free throws in the final minute to claim the win.
“(Missed free throws) are contagious” Mergel said. “We called a timeout and Cal stepped up and hit that one. We needed someone to step up and break the ice and Cal did that.”
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING: Madison senior Jaycob Stone backed Jackson with 13 points. Madison shot 48 percent from the field (20-42) and finished 18 of 29 from the foul line (62 percent).
Sophomore forward Chance Mott came off the bench to lead Ontario with 12 points. Freshman guard Griffin Shaver added nine. Ontario was 18 of 47 from the field (38 percent) and added 11 of 16 at the line (69 percent).
The Rams owned a 33-29 rebounding edge, led by 12 from Jackson and six from Rickert. Sophomore Jayden Jacobs topped Ontario with seven. Madison had nine turnovers, compared to 12 for the Warriors.
READY FOR TOURNAMENTS: Madison travels to Toledo Start High School on Wednesday to play Perrysburg at 7 p.m. in a Division I sectional tournament game.
“I like where we are,” Mergel said. “Not traveling-wise, but I like where my team is. I don’t really like traveling to Toledo, but I like our match-up with Perrysburg. It’s very similar to what we (faced) tonight.”
Ontario plays Clyde on Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. in the Division II tournament at Willard High School.
“We got impatient on offense tonight,” Balogh said of his young team that has just two seniors. “We got down by six or eight and we tried to make that up in two possessions. We didn’t trust the stuff that we do. We need to understand when we do what we do, we can be good offensively.
“It shouldn’t be youth anymore. That shouldn’t be an issue at this point in the season, but for us, it is at times.
“Hopefully, we can correct that when we go to Willard on Wednesday.”
