LINDEN — Jesse Hall joined an elite Indiana high school basketball club on Tuesday night, eclipsing the 1,000-point mark while helping give Crawfordsville a 74-33 win over county rival North Montgomery.
The senior scored a put-back basket late in the third quarter to hit the scoring barrier and set a new career-high of 33 points.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Hall said. “A big accomplishment that everyone looks forward to and everyone tries to get. Just glad that I was able to enjoy it with my teammates more. It made it more special that the whole team was in on it and they were able to help push me through and celebrate with me.”
Hall scored 24 of his game-high 33 points in the first half, giving Crawfordsville (10-3, 5-0 SAC) a 48-23 halftime lead.
“Jesse is a super unselfish player,” Crawfordsville coach David Pierce said. “He’s basically a point guard in a 6-foot-8 man’s body. So it’s really hard with his personality to beg him to put pressure on himself and go get as many as he can. There are a lot of times where we are begging him to go score. Obviously this year he’s done really well. It’s an unselfish 1,000 points. For him to do it in the short amount of time that he did in three years says a lot about the style of play he likes to play. He likes to play team basketball. He doesn’t like to just go out and get his shots all the time, he likes to move the ball around and the way he did it is impressive.”
After just 27 points as a freshman, Hall had back-to-back seasons of 375 and 376 points as a sophomore and junior, cementing himself as one of the top players in the Sagamore Conference and putting him on track for 1,000 points.
“Definitely after sophomore year, I thought a few more years of that it was achievable for sure,” Hall said.
Tuesday night, Hall was 14-of-21 from the field, but he wasn’t the only Athenian hot from the field. Ty Lynas added 11 points and Nate Schroeter and Alex Kellerman each chipped in seven on perfect shooting nights. The Athenians were 30-of-47 (64%) from the field for the game.
“We still struggled on defense, but we did some good things,” North Montgomery second-year coach Chad Arnold said. “They are men against boys right now. But we are going to grow up and we will get there.”
The Chargers (2-11, 0-5 SAC) started three freshmen and a sophomore, and were without lone senior Logan Kelly. North Montgomery was 10-of-18 shooting in the first half, but managed just 10 second half points.
“We are playing a lot of freshmen, and we did some good things when they were running and jumping us in the halfcourt,” Arnold said. “I was proud of them and they did some good things tonight. It’s a slow process, but guys are starting to understand things we are wanting and we are getting there.”
Crawfordsville blitzed the Chargers for 27 first quarter points, but the Chargers didn’t back down offensively with a 14-point first frame, including six-straight from sophomore Ryder Punke. Freshman Jarrod Kirsch led the Chargers in the game with eight points, while brother Jakob, added seven.
“I was really proud of our guys’ defense,” Pierce said. “Granted we gave up our most points in the first quarter, but we really had to get all over the court, whether it half-court trap or full-court pressure. Running all over the place. It allowed us to score 27, our best quarter, but we also gave up 14. So it’s a double-edged sword.”
Crawfordsville welcomes Tri-West on Friday, while North Montgomery travels to Frankfort.
