Jacob Meyer and Javier Ward are the center of attention for the opponent when Holy Cross hits the floor.
The two combine for 54.3 points per game, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the offense on a nightly basis.
But in order for the Indians to get where they want to be come late February, early March, they need others to help carry the load.
Jacob Smith answered the bell on Wednesday night as the Indians took down Highlands, 83-77 at the Thomas B. Finn Activity Center.
Smith scored 22 points, 15 of them coming in the first quarter as Holy Cross built their lead to as much as 20 in the first half. His 3-point shooting helped open lanes for Meyer and Ward, as did the Indians defense that forced 13 first half turnovers.
“I tell these guys every day our best offense is our defense. It’s my favorite set play. If we if we can defend and we can rebound, we’re going to put a lot of points on the board,” Indians coach Casey Sorrell said.
Smith’s 3-point barrage started early and often. His fourth 3-pointer of the opening frame gave the Indians a 21-6 lead. Coming in as a 33 percent shooter from distance on 66 attempts, the looks had been there for Smith, but just hasn’t found his rhythm.
“Everybody came together before the game and was talking about just being a team. Jacob started basically moving the ball everywhere, everybody was getting shots. It was just a good team win,” Smith said.
The Indians took a 30-13 lead into the second. After back-to-back layups from Meyer to make it 38-18, the Bluebirds finally started to establish the offense that has them as tied for the top scoring team in the state with 82.8 points per game.
The Bluebirds would end the half on a 14-6 run to get within eight at the break at 44-32.
“We got off to a very slow start and didn’t really find any offensive rhythm until probably middle of the second quarter really,” Bluebirds coach Kevin Listerman said.
Holy Cross remained comfortably ahead, a Sam Gibson dunk followed by a Meyer 3-pointer giving them a 53-36 edge. But the Bluebirds kept coming, Nathan Vinson and Will Herald starting to will them back in it.
The two combined for 19 of the Bluebirds next 26 points, Vinson’s layup followed by a 3-pointer turning what was a 20-point deficit down to three at 65-62 with 5:38 to play.
“I’m truly proud of our kids for the effort that they gave. What I was most proud of was they didn’t panic. You get down 20 in the first half and people start looking at each other, like what are we going to do? I just kept telling them do what we do, keep grinding and we got ourselves back into the game. It gave us an opportunity to to to win it down the stretch,” Listerman said.
Another Vinson layup later in the quarter made it 71-69 Indians, but another Gibson dunk followed by layups from Smith and Meyer kept the Indians ahead 77-70 with just a little over a minute to play.
The Indians would go 6-for-6 from the line in the last minute to seal the deal, earning their best win of the season to date. A night after coming off their most lopsided loss of the season to Conner, the Indians responded.
“It’s taken a lot of patience I think for us to finally get what I would consider a big win, but they responded really well tonight and proud of them,” Sorrell said. “We had a lot of adversity in our game last night, we didn’t play well at all. I’ve been all over these guys and they came out today and they responded, they did everything that us coaches have asked them to do.”
Meyer finished with 29 on an off night, going 12-for-29 from the field, but played the role of facilitator with eight assists.
“When they hit shots when I pass it just helps a lot the whole game, it gets us going,” Meyer said. “When Jacob Smith is hitting shots it opens up for everybody. Him hitting those five three’s helped me get to the lane the second half.”
Ward tallied 23 points, Sam Gibson with seven points and 14 rebounds, Matt Dreas finishing with four points, nine assists and three steals.
Holy Cross now heads into the 9th Region All “A” tournament next week as they look to defend their title, starting off with Heritage Academy on Tuesday.
The Bluebirds put five players in double figures, Vinson finishing with 20 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. Herald had 18, knocking down 5-of-8 from three, Brayden Moeves adding 14, hitting 4-of-6 from deep, Brody Benke chipping in 13 points and nine rebounds, Seth Ryan with 12 points, eight rebounds and six assists.
Highlands returns to action on Thursday at Dayton before hosting Newport on Saturday.
“Our two most important games are the next two. Those district seed games are huge. So we’ve got to be proud of the effort, we’ve got to correct the mistakes and the good news is we get to go right back at it so we don’t get to think about it too long,” Listerman said.