Port St. Joe Glides Past Jefferson County

Even without their leading scorer the Tiger Sharks were too much for Jefferson County on Thursday night.

Despite two meaningless free throws from senior forward Raheem Clemons, averaging nearly 15 points a game, Port St. Joe had enough speed and tenacious defense to overpower the Tigers 66-52 in a Region 1-2A quarterfinal.

The Tiger Sharks (24-4) host Tallahassee Maclay on Tuesday in a region semifinal.

“The first game (of the postseason) is the hardest to win,” said Port St. Joe coach Derek Kurnitsky alluding to last year’s 20-win season that ended in a first-round exit. “You have butterflies and jitters. This was important.

“This was the best defensive game we’ve played this year. I don’t know where we’ve been hiding it, but that was big.”

The game turned on the ability of the Tiger Sharks in the second half to pull Jefferson County (15-11) out of its effective 2-3 zone.

Maintaining their 2-3 zone despite turning the ball over nine times to Port St. Joe’s two allowed the Tigers to stay in the game during the opening two quarters.

Primarily the zone kept Clemons and guard Roman Quinn off the scoreboard as the Tiger Sharks tried to push against what proved for a time to be a tightly-packed and all but impenetrable defense.

Darrell Smith scored eight of his 13 points and Willie Quinn scored 11 of his game-high 19 points, primarily on offensive rebounds, as Port St. Joe built a 26-22 lead to cap a half in which the teams were separated by more than three points just once.

That came early in the second period when Port St. Joe completed a 6-0 run for a 21-14 lead only to see Jefferson County respond with a six-point string inside from center Harold Ingram (14 points).

The second half was sparked by two changes – the Tiger Sharks built enough of a lead to force Jefferson County to play man-to-man coverage and that lead was sparked by Roman Quinn (18 points).

The junior poured in his first nine points of the game as Port St. Joe stretched the margin to 42-35 and the energy increased for Port St. Joe to full press-and-run mode.

“He was unbelievable,” Kurnitsky said of Roman Quinn. “He took over the game.

“(Jefferson County is) a good ball club. But once we made them play us man-to-man, we have four players who can go to the basket.”

Quinn’s outburst fed a 21-9 sprint to open the fourth as point guard Calvin Pryor (14 points) found room to operate in a spread attack and the Tiger Sharks were up 63-44 with less than 90 seconds left.

Chris Mays, who scored eight of his team-high 15 points in the final seconds, helped the Tigers shape a slightly more respectable end to the night.

 “They attacked the basket better than us and we gave them way too many weakside baskets,” said Jefferson County assistant coach Jeremy Brown. “Give them credit, once they forced us out of our zone and made us play them man-to-man, they were the better team.”

JC (52) – Mays 7 1-1 15, Nedley 1-1 9, Ingram 2-4 6, Crumity 3 0-0 8, Johnson 1 0-0 2, Whitfield 2 0-0 4. Totals: 23 4-6 51.

PSJ (66) – Roman Quinn 7 3-4 18, Clemons 0 2-2 2, Smith 5 3-3 13, Willie Quinn 9 1-1 19, Pryor 6 1-4 14. Totals:27 8-13 69.