MOUNT VERNON – Beau Bridges led a balanced effort with 14 points, nine rebounds, three steals and two blocks.
Mount Vernon had six players score seven or more points, and the Yellow Jackets claimed their first postseason win since 2018 with a 64-50 decision over Westland in the first round of the Division I district tournament on Tuesday, Feb. 23, at The Hive.
Now the Jackets have second-seeded Westerville Central looming in the second round on Friday.
Mount Vernon coach Nick Coon doesn’t have to look that far back in Mount Vernon tournament lore to find a little bit of motivation. The Jackets knocked off top-seeded Pickerington North in a district semifinal in 2018, which happened to be their last tournament win.
Still, Friday’s game may be a taller order. The Jackets were seeded 16th when they upset the Panthers. This year’s team is seeded 38th, though the win over Westland was MV’s fourth in its last five games.
“Anything really can happen,” Coon said. “We know it’s a tremendous challenge. (Westerville Central) won the district last year and didn’t actually get beat to end their year. They were in the regionals when everything got shut down. I’m sure they feel like they’ve got some unfinished business.”
“We feel like we can beat anybody,” Bridges said. “In high school basketball, anybody can beat anybody. Coach Coon has said that a lot. You never know if they have a bad shooting night, or we could have a really good shooting night. You never know.”
Against Westland, Bridges scored the first basket of the game — off an Owynn Gleason feed underneath — and the Jackets (8-13) never trailed. Dayne Burgess and Gleason followed with scores to up the lead to 6-0 before a DJ Bogay bucket got the 44th-seeded Cougars on the board roughly three minutes into the game.
Mount Vernon led by as much as 11 in the first quarter before Westland found its footing.
Drew Panning and Mikey Dingess knocked down four 3s to help the Cougars whittle down the lead to 20-19 with 6:18 left in the second quarter.
But Gleason sparked an 11-0 run for the Jackets with a 3 and two assists, and Mount Vernon led 31-22 at the break. Gleason finished with seven points, five assists and four rebounds.
Similar to the Jackets’ last game at Delaware on Feb. 18 where they led by 10 at the half, Westland was able to climb back, closing within three on another Dingess 3-pointer.
But Mount Vernon went on an 11-2 run to push the lead back out and Westland never got close again, unlike the 57-51 overtime loss to the Pacers.
“Credit Westland, they came out early in the third and kept throwing punches at us,” Coon said. “But I think that learning experience from (Delaware) — from being in that position and being back at home — we grew from that. We were able to take that punch, but then keep the lead and then extend the lead.”
Hudson Rohler had 11 points, three rebounds and three assists; and Nolan Belcher added nine points and three boards for MV.
Blake Meyer and Dayne Burgess scored eight points apiece. Meyer also had 10 rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals; and Burgess had four rebounds and two assists for the Jackets.
Dingess hit five 3s and finished with 15 points to lead the Cougars (3-17). He added three steals and a couple of helpers.
Panning and Maleek Knight scored 11 points apiece; and Bogay finished with seven points, eight rebounds and six assists for Westland.
