In the end, Friday’s Jackson County-Jefferson game came down to a simple matter of desire. The Panthers, apparently, had more of it.
Jackson County scored its biggest victory in recent memory, beating no. 9 Jefferson 56-54 in a renewal of the basketball series between the schools.
“Like coach said in the beginning it was, ‘who wanted it more?” Jackson County guard Alex Crawford said. “I’m not saying they didn’t want it, but I felt like down the stretch, I felt like through the game, we still had it.”
Jefferson coach Bolling DuBose offered a similar assessment.
“I think you’ve got to give Jackson County credit, because their kids wanted it more than we did,” he said.
Especially Ben Weaver. The Panthers’ senior center scored Jackson County’s final four points, including a go-ahead bucket with 1:35 to put Jackson County up 56-54. Weaver then pulled down two key rebounds down the stretch as Jackson County upended Jefferson.
The Dragons — winners of three straight — had an opportunity to save themselves at the end, but missed two three-point attempts in their final possession.
“If we would have hit that shot, we would have gotten the win, but we would not have deserved to win,” DuBose said.
Instead, Jackson County players stormed the court as the final buzzer sounded, savoring the biggest win yet in its turnaround season.
A big part of that turnaround has been Kolin Zimmer, who drained five three-pointers to lead Jackson County with 19 points.
“He’s just a great shooter,” Jackson County coach Britt Beaver said. “He really is.”
Jarvis Shaw added 14 points, including a big three in the third quarter that helped the Panthers take a 45-42 edge into the final quarter.
The victory was Jackson County’s sixth in seven games — it then went on to beat Oconee County the following night — following a 0-4 start.
And a very special victory at that.
“Jefferson is a huge win for us,” Beaver said. “Because it’s a great team, and DuBose is a great coach. That’s a good win for us.”
Beaver said both teams’ defenses did a good job disrupting each other’s offenses.
The coach said he thought his team managed to effectively slowdown Jefferson’s uptempo attack to put it in a position to win.
“It got down to kind of a street brawl there — a great rivalry. That’s a great basketball game there,” Beaver said.
DuBose said his team strayed from its game plan against a good team.
“We did a very poor job of getting into our offense,” DuBose said. “We settled for a lot of three-point shots.”
Then there were other intangibles: DuBose said his team simply got out-played and out-coached.
“And that’s my fault,” DuBose said.
Austin Thompson paced Jefferson with 17 points, including four three-pointers in the first half as Jefferson led 31-30 at the break.
Jefferson tied the nip-and-tuck ball game at 54 late with a bucket from Chris Jackson but went the final 2:08 without scoring.
“Both teams have 32 minutes,” DuBose said. “You make things happen or you don’t.”
Beaver attributed his team’s win to simple heart and effort.
“That’s the big thing with these kids,” Beaver said. “It’s that never-say-die. They just keep working. And I’m so excited for these kids …. Because they’ve been told for four years, if you keep working hard, good things will happen.”
It will be a while before the teams see each other again. Jefferson and Jackson County won’t rematch until Feb. 11 in Jefferson, which will be the subregion finale for both squads.
“We get them at our gym at the end of the season … We’ll see if we’ve learned anything by then,” DuBose said.
