With all the history and talent in the Ninth Region, Holy Cross guard Jacob Meyer can now claim something no one else can.
Meyer surpassed Beechwood’s Scotty Draud Ninth Region scoring record on Saturday night at the Thomas B. Finn Activity Center on the Indians senior night. Meyer entered the Indians contest with Dixie Heights needing 16 points to break Draud’s mark of 3,128 career points in his career with the Tigers.
Meyer broke the record on a dunk in the second quarter with 2:31 to play, play pausing shortly after, Meyer getting the game ball, a handshake and hug by his coach Casey Sorrell before he was mobbed at midcourt by a pool of photographers and cameramen.
“Coming into this game I didn’t really think about it. I just wanted to get the win. Senior night, be with those guys and just wanted to win,” Meyer said.
Meyer came to Holy Cross as a freshman playing under Brandon Grammer, his actual career total 65 points higher when he played on Scott High’s varsity team as an eighth grader. He certainly didn’t wait for his time to shine, Meyer scoring 498 points as a young gun and leading the team averaging 17.8 points per game. The light bulb came on.
“That’s when I definitely started to take it more serious. Figured I could do something good with this game, maybe play professionally,” Meyer said.
His sophomore year, a COVID shortened one to 24 games, Meyer continued his rise with 606 points and 25.2 points per game.
Then the junior year happened. Yes, “thee” junior year. The year where Meyer not only lead KHSAA in scoring across the state, but Meyer ended up leading the nation with 38.2 points per game in scoring 1,109 points during the 2021-22 campaign.
Rewind back to the summer of 2022 and Saturday night almost never happened, Meyer opting to head to The Skill Factory in Atlanta to prep school to finish out his career, but decided to return home prior to the season to finish things out at Holy Cross.
“It’s a family around here,” Meyer said. “When I left and came back I didn’t really think about the scoring title or anything. I just wanted to come back and go out there and win with my team.”
The family atmosphere made Meyer’s decision easy to return. Even when he was gone Indians coach Casey Sorrell kept close contact with him despite being hundreds of miles away.
“These kids are his best friends. I could tell in those conversations that his heart was at Holy Cross and his heart was finishing what he started with with these players. He grew up with these guys. He’s been playing with them his whole life. There’s a lot of love between our players. And that’s that’s a special dynamic that I think he didn’t want to pass up,” Sorrell said.
Sorrell has been on both sides with Meyer, his first two years of Meyer’s high school career as an assistant at 35th District rival Covington Catholic and then the last two years as his head coach. Sorrell has been fortunate to be on the sidelines of many talented teams, including a few still playing college basketball with the 2018 state champ Covington Catholic team.
“I’ve been very blessed in in my short coaching career to coach a lot of really, really good talent at both CovCath and Holy Cross. I’ve never seen a player at any level who can dominate a game like Jake. Jake is so polarizing. He’s the most elite scorer that I’ve ever seen in my life,” Sorrell said. “I’ve coached a lot of big name guys, guys that are playing at the next level. But, I look at kind of the things that he can do that you can’t teach. His body control, his ability, his explosiveness, his speed, his ability to jump and hang in the air finish with his right hand, finish with his left hand. He can shoot the three, he can score mid-range, he can obviously score at the rim. I mean, he can do it all. He’s a bucket-getter.”
Meyer entered Saturday night with 36 points per game and 900 points in his senior season, that tally now up to 946 points and 36.3 points per game. A lot was going on before Saturday night’s contest, on top of the seven seniors being recognized including Meyer, Javier Ward, Sam Gibson, Matthew Dreas, Jacob Smith, Max White and manager Michael Weller, Ward was recognized for scoring his 1,000th career point a few games prior and Sam Gibson recognized for grabbing 500 career rebounds during the All “A” state tournament in Richmond.
After a tight game and the Indians lead at just six midway through the third quarter, Holy Cross eventually pulled away to win 85-58, defeating a Colonels team that ended their season last year in the region tournament semifinals with a senior heavy roster.
“We struggled to pull away from them. I think with all the festivities before the game, there was a lot of distractions taking place,” Sorrell said.
The Ninth Region scoring record was held by Draud’s father Scott for 28 years in his playing days at Highlands from 1983-86, finishing with 2,865 career points.
Dixie Heights and this record has a common occurrence. Brandon Hatton at Dixie Heights broke the record in 2014, finishing with 3,045 career points. Scotty Draud then broke the record in 2021, finishing his career with 3,128 points. Draud was in attendance after scurrying over from Thomas More’s Saturday game against Freed-Hardeman in Crestview Hills with a 3 p.m. start. Draud broke the record against the Colonels as well and Meyer’s older brother played at Dixie Heights. Meyer’s Ninth Region total now sits at 3,159 points, 3,224 for his career when counting his points at Scott.
“There’s a few games left hopefully. It’s cool that he was able to get it on senior night at home in front of our home crowd. That’s a big piece of basketball history. That’s a record that stood for a very long time. I think Jake can get that number to a point where it might not ever be touched,” Sorrell said.
Holy Cross has now won 13 of their last 14 games and Saturday being their 20th of the season. They have two regular season games left before the 35th District Tournament starting off with where it all started for Meyer with Scott on Tuesday. The lone loss during that stretch was in the All “A” state championship to Evangel Christian, a contender to make it to Rupp Arena out of the Sixth Region.
As for Meyer and the Indians, they’re also in the hunt for Rupp as a Ninth Region contender, a tournament that will be highly anticipated with how competitive region play has been this season.
With Meyer, anything is possible.
“We believe Jacob Meyer is the best player on the floor every time he steps between the lines. I think we have guys that fill roles around him and really complement him. And I think we got a whole team. Each individual is committed to winning. But whenever you have the best player on floor to take over a game and put up a lot of points up in a hurry, it makes you very dangerous,” Sorrell said.
DIXIE HEIGHTS — 10-18-13-17 — 58
HOLY CROSS — 17-21-17-30 — 85
Dixie Heights (58) – Derry 14, Rice 10, Johnson 8, Blank 7, Nieheus 5, Bock 4, Massie 4, Kazmeier 4, Johnson 2
Holy Cross (85) – Meyer 46, Ward 14, Smith 8, Arlinghuas 6, Gibson 6, Weller 3, McElheney 2
Records: Dixie Heights 6-16, Holy Cross 20-6