IVC spoils PHS’ Senior Night

PRINCETON — The Princeton Tiger community came out to honor its senior basketball players and classmates from their support staff before tip-off Friday night at Prouty Gymnasium. That’s how long the celebration lasted, however.

The visiting Grey Ghosts of Chillicothe IVC spoiled the Senior Night festivities, defeating the Tigers 63-48. IVC outscored the Tigers 21-11 to close out the second quarter to go up by 10 at halftime, riding Bryce Jackson’s 17 points. The Grey Ghosts closed the third quarter on a 7-0 run to go up 49-35 and put the game away.

“We let Jackson get off in the first half with 17 and then we held him to zero the second,” PHS coach Jesse Brandt said. “They got that lead and every time we seemed to make a push, they’d make two or three baskets in a row. They had to shoot heckuva percentage. We only had 16 rebounds in the game, because they hardly missed. They had 30 rebounds, 23 defensive, because we didn’t make shots and they did.”

Brandt said the third and fourth quarter turned the tide in which the Tigers shot a collective 27 percent from the field (7 of 26). The more they shot, they more they missed.

“When you’re behind you got to take shots. We took some bad shots. I think we were forcing them a little bit because nothing was going in,” he said.

Senior standout Jacob Fisher led the Tigers with 23 points and 11 rebounds in his final home game, barring a Tiger regional championship to return them to the Princeton Sectional. He took a bow along with classmate Kyle Arnett, Cole Jilderda and Lance Jensen.

The loss dropped the Tigers under the .500 mark at 12-13 and to 0-3 in NCIC play. Brandt was disappointed they couldn’t send the Class of 2012 out with a win.

“They’ve worked awful hard and done a nice job being as good as leaders as they can be,” Brandt said. “They’re not real vocal guys anyhow. Kyle more than anybody else. Jacob and Lance are not vocal guys at all, but they’ve done a nice job being leaders. Cole Jilderda came out after a year or two off and works hard.