Thompson dreams big, plays big as Crestview’s all-time best scorer

OLIVESBURG – The fate of Justice Thompson’s high school athletic career rested on a personal goal that most people would have simply written off as crazy talk.

“I told myself before my sophomore year that if I didn’t get All-Ohio in basketball that I was going to play football (as a junior),” Thompson said earlier this week.

It was a bold mandate. As a 6-foot freshman at Crestview High School, he had spent very little time playing varsity minutes, let alone hinting at any kind of all-state capability.

Thompson scored just 51 varsity points as a freshman in the 2021-22 season. But a random, 20-point night off the bench that year against a solid Monroeville team provided a glimpse into his future.

After the close of his sophomore season – one that saw Crestview set a school record for wins at the time (21-3) – Thompson had averaged a team-high 15.6 points per game and had knocked down 40 3-pointers.

He was named a third-team All-Ohioan, the first boys basketball player at CHS to make all-state since Mike Vipperman in 2000.

The decision was locked in. Thompson, who had played football through eighth grade, would focus only on basketball as a high schooler. He wanted to avoid injuries and become the best version of himself on the court that he felt he could be.

Now, entering the final postseason of his high school career (the Cougars host Bucyrus in a Division VI sectional final Friday), the 6-4 Thompson carries with him the school’s all-time career scoring record and All-Ohio first-team status from last year as well.

“Once I saw I could put up a game like the Monroeville game (as a freshman), I told myself I was going to become a great player,” said Thompson, who has received interest from a variety of NCAA Division III programs in Ohio and plans to continue his playing career in college. “Over that summer, I just worked on my game everyday to try to become one of the leaders here.”

Crestview head coach John Kurtz remembers that fateful game three years ago very well.

“We had an injury and he came in and he just was super hot,” Kurtz said of Thompson’s shooting that night. “I just remember him hitting (six) 3-pointers. He wasn’t quite ready for varsity that season, but he carried a heavy load on the JV and he came in and played great in that game.”

The progression since then has been unmistakably impressive.

Among the eight current boys basketball teams in the Firelands Conference (which have been the same since 1992-93), Thompson’s 1,494 career points rank eighth all-time.

He broke a 60-year-old Crestview scoring record earlier this season when he surpassed 1965 graduate Dave Groff, whose 1,332 points from his final three years of high school were recognized as the school’s most ever. Groff technically played just two seasons at Crestview (scoring 958 points) after spending his first two years at Union before the Union-Savannah consolidation created CHS.

Thompson also passed Cougar 1,000-point scorers Evan Hamilton (1,140) and Fred Stimpert (1,173) on his way to the top this season.

“I’m still shook by (the scoring record),” he said. “It doesn’t feel like I’ve scored that much, but I guess I have put up some decent numbers.

“I wanted to become a 1,000-point scorer, but I didn’t really think (1,500) would be possible.”

Kurtz has been coaching basketball for 34 years. He’s been a varsity head coach for nearly 700 games at three different schools and has 421 career wins.

If he made up a starting five from all the players he’s coached, Kurtz said Thompson would definitely be in it.

“The thing that’s always been true with Justice is he really works hard at what he does,” the coach said. “He’s always been the kid who’s in the building a lot, rarely misses anything.

“And what’s most impressive to me is he just hates to lose. … His desire to win is very high. You don’t always have players like that in any sport.”

Thompson said he was on three youth basketball teams at the same time when he was in fifth grade.

He honed his skills by annually playing travel basketball through last year with a team based mostly out of the Sandusky area. That squad, Ohio Buckets, played about 45 games a season.

And while that big night against Monroeville his freshman year showed his outside shooting talents, Thompson has spent the last three seasons turning himself into an all-around threat.

He will finish his high school career with more than 350 rebounds and could break Vipperman’s CHS record of 144 career 3-pointers (Thompson has 142).

It could have been tempting for him to live outside the perimeter on offense considering his accuracy. Thompson is 129-of-307 from beyond the arc the last three years combined (42 percent), hitting at least 40 treys per season.

But Kurtz said his evolution as an all-around scorer is what has separated him from the vast majority of high school players.

“We just really wanted him to learn how to take the ball to the rim; that’s the big part that’s changed for him,” Kurtz said. “We knew he could shoot the 3, and people would play him that way, so he really worked on getting to the basket.

“He can play both inside and out, (and) when you’re in Division VI, you need both. He’s been inside more this year than any other year just because we needed the rebounding.”

Thompson will have led the Cougars in scoring every season of the best three-year stretch in program history (currently 58 wins since his sophomore year).

He’s also certain to be the program’s first three-time All-Ohioan.

The senior was first-team All-Ohio and the FC Player of the Year last season when he averaged 23.7 points and 4.3 rebounds per game.

This winter, his numbers have bumped up to 25.0 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, and he’s still connected on a career-high 45 treys.

Junior Karter Goon is one of three returning lettermen alongside Thompson and senior Tyson Ringler. He said there is never a dull moment playing alongside Thompson.

“He can drive, shoot, score in the mid-range,” Goon said. “But I think the best part is he can be really physical. I don’t think many people are great drivers and shooters while also being physical.

“He’s just able to go get a bucket whenever he wants. It’s been kind of crazy to play with a guy like that.”

For all of Thompson’s individual accomplishments, it might just be the team successes he has helped engineer that will be remembered most.

During their 21-3 season his sophomore year, the Cougars finished perfect in the FC (14-0) for the first time.

Then last year, they won a school-record 18 straight games to start the season, re-set the school record for wins (22-2) and split the league crown with St. Paul.

“Once we hit that 20-win mark my sophomore year,” Thompson said. “I knew for the next couple years we’d be a really great team. We just love winning.”

Had the Flyers not shocked Crestview on a buzzer-beater last year, the Cougars would have had a 39-game Firelands Conference win streak that spanned four different seasons.

Still, Crestview’s impressive streaks that lasted until this season included a 29-game home win streak, a 26-game FC win streak, and a 20-game FC win streak at home that went for nearly three calendar years.

The Cougars had records of 14-0, 18-0 and 12-1 to begin the last three years, respectively, and all of it was with Thompson as the guy every team had to worry about the most.

“I feel like I can do everything (the team needs on offense),” he said. “If a team takes away my 3-ball, I’m gonna work inside in the paint and do post moves.”

Goon said Thompson and the Cougars have become one of those teams with a giant target on its back.

“Every team wants to try to knock us off,” he said. “We know everybody is going to give us 110 percent.”

Thompson said his best individual performance this season was Jan. 31 when he scored 37 points and helped Crestview overcome a big deficit inside the final minute to beat Mapleton, 59-56. He had 16 points in the fourth quarter that night.

Last year, his top effort came when he netted a career-high 38 against Ontario. Crestview set a school record for points in that 105-94 victory.

Thompson said his biggest supporter has been his father, Norm Thompson, a “basketball junkie” and 1999 CHS graduate who played for an FC-champion Cougars squad as a senior.

He’s also a distant relative of Shelby and Ohio State basketball legend Larry Siegfried, who won an NCAA title in 1960 and was part of five NBA championships with the Boston Celtics.

According to firelandsconferencehistory.com, Thompson could finish this year as one of just five players since the start of the FC in 1960 to average 25 points per game in a season.

If Thompson and Mapleton senior Scotty Hickey (currently at 25.1 ppg this season) both accomplish it, they will be just the second and third FC players in over 30 years to do so (Plymouth’s Brook Turson was the only other, averaging 25.0 ppg in 2009-10).

But with the postseason kicking off Friday night, Thompson said his full focus is on winning.

Despite all the records set by Crestview in the last three seasons, the program still hasn’t won a district championship since Groff’s group 60 years ago.

“Our goal was to get to districts and we’ve been able to do that a couple years in a row,” Kurtz said. “… Last year we had that tough situation where we ended up facing Margaretta in the district semis and (they were regional runners-up).”

Kurtz said the Cougars – including Thompson – have been dealing with more sickness in recent weeks than any team he’s ever had, going one four-day stretch without even practicing. Multiple players have had pneumonia and four have had to go on inhalers to deal with their issues.

Partially due to that, Crestview (15-6, 10-4 FC) went just 1-4 over its final five games of the regular season after a 14-2 start. That slide kept them from their first-ever FC three-peat, as St. Paul (17-5, 13-1) won its final 11 games and beat CHS twice to take the league crown.

But both Thompson and Kurtz said the Cougars finally seem fully healthy at just the right time.

Assuming they take care of business Friday against Bucyrus (1-21), they will face the winner of the Monroeville (15-7) vs. Seneca East (14-8) matchup Wednesday in the district semifinals.

A victory there could send them into a district title bout with Colonel Crawford (20-1), ranked eighth in the Division VI MaxPreps state poll. Crestview handed the Northern Ten Conference-champion Eagles their lone loss this year in the season-opener for both teams, 56-48.

“Hopefully we’re getting healthy enough to get back on track,” Kurtz said. “Not only did the sickness take away the health of the players, but it feels like we’ve kind of lost our continuity a little bit, so that’s the part we’re trying to get back.”

Thompson believes he and his teammates can use their experience over these last three seasons to finally break through.

“I’m more of the mindset that, a record is cool, but we want to break big records as a team,” he said. “I’ll take an individual record, but I’d rather have a district title.”