Jamestown boys top Calvary Lutheran

Jimmie Wehmeyer of Calvary Lutheran goes up for a layup while Trenton Barbour of Jamestown defends during Friday night's game at Calvary Lutheran.
Jimmie Wehmeyer of Calvary Lutheran goes up for a layup while Trenton Barbour of Jamestown defends during Friday night's game at Calvary Lutheran.

The Jamestown boys basketball team is working its way down the checklist.

After reaching the 20-win plateau last week, the Eagles moved on to their next item: winning the CCAA conference title.

Jamestown took another step toward that achievement Friday with a 70-48 win against the Calvary Lutheran Lions.

"You want to take care of your first goal, and that's winning the conference," Jamestown coach Seth Thomas said. "You want to make sure you're not taking anybody for granted. (Calvary Lutheran) came out tonight and gave us a good shot."

Calvary Lutheran came after Jamestown on the opening tip. Matt Allen jumped and tapped the ball forward to R.J. Mays, who raced past everyone to score an easy layup three seconds into the game.

"When you're playing a team on Senior Night, they're going to come out ready to go," Thomas said.

Josh Pritchett scored a putback to put Calvary Lutheran ahead 4-2 in the early going, but the Lions would make just two more field goals the rest of the quarter.

Jamestown held Calvary Lutheran scoreless for a stretch of 7:26 during the first half. The Eagles scored 18 unanswered points during that time to build a 30-8 lead with 3:11 left in the second quarter.

"That's been our Achilles' heel this year, not being able to combine good defense with good offense," Calvary Lutheran coach Mark Buffington said. "We'll have a really good defense - which I thought our defense was decent tonight, they're a really good team - but we couldn't make shots."

Trenton Barbour scored a 3-point play to cap Jamestown's 18-0 run, then knocked down his only 3-pointer of the game from the top of the key to make the score 33-11.

Barbour, who was one rebound shy of a double-double by halftime, scored eight of Jamestown's first 11 points to start the second half, extending a 42-16 halftime lead to a 53-25 advantage midway through the third quarter.

"These past couple of games, he's really risen to the occasion," Thomas said of Barbour, who had game-highs of 18 points and nine rebounds. "He leads us in rebounding and he's scoring inside. I think the biggest impact he's had is he's really been attacking the offensive glass, keeping plays alive and giving us second chances."

Jamestown extended its lead to 60-31 by the end of the third quarter and led by as many as 34 points in the fourth quarter.

Calvary Lutheran scored 11 points in the final 1:19 to cut the final margin to 22 points.

With five of his top seven players being seniors, and with the season winding down, Thomas didn't wait until the fourth quarter to clear his bench. He gave all five starters a break the final 1:30 of the first half, giving players toward the end of the bench meaningful minutes prior to a fourth-quarter blowout.

"To those kids' credit, I got seven points off guys that usually don't see a lot of playing time," Thomas said. "That was an added bonus for us."

Garrett Wolfe and Cole Theissen each finished with 11 points for Jamestown, which had nine different players score and got all 13 players into the game.

Calvary Lutheran's scoring column was dominated by its three seniors. Mays finished with a team-high 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting, while Jimmie Wehmeyer had 14 points and eight rebounds. Allen added five points in the fourth quarter to finish with 11 points in his final home game.

"They've worked so hard all year," Buffington said of Calvary Lutheran's seniors, who accounted for 41 of the team's 48 points. "It's been a struggle with getting some wins, but they show up every day, they've always had a great attitude all year and they work hard."

Jamestown (21-2, 2-0 CCAA), ranked No. 4 in Class 1, plays Tuesday at Higbee.

Calvary Lutheran (6-14), which finished 1-3 in conference play, wraps up the regular season next Friday at St. Elizabeth.