TROY – Zac Ridenhour opened Jersey’s IHSA Class 3A Triad Regional opening-round match against the host Knights on fire.
And he stayed white-hot all night long.
Everything he shot at the basket went in. Didn’t matter if it was up close, right behind the three-point arc – even from NBA three-point range. Ridenhour put it up, it was going into the basket.
And the senior didn’t stop until he had a career-best 31-point night, including hitting all six three-point shots he tried. It was enough to send the Panthers into a semifinal clash at 7 p.m. Wednesday against Mississippi Valley Conference rival Highland, with that winner meeting the Civic Memorial-Belleville Althoff winner in Friday night’s final; the winner of the regional moves into next week’s Highland Sectional.
“When college coaches have called me, the one thing he’s missing is that he’s not shooting very well,” Panther coach Stote Reeder said. “I’m going to keep saying he’s not shooting very well,” Reeder said with a smile. “I see it in practice all the time; I mean, he goes bananas in practice like that all the time…he took what Triad gave him and they like to pack it in to take away his drive, and he’s really gotten to the rim on them the first two games.
“Tonight, they left him open out there and they took advantage. He did a nice job of reading (high screens); when he’s finding the open guy, you just can’t focus on him.”
The Panthers, though, got out of the gates fairly slow, trailing the Knights at quarter time by a small margin, but Reeder wasn’t exactly happy about how things were going, and he gave his team a bit of a bake during the first break. “We were very unhappy with that first quarter defense,” Reeder said. “(Noah) Moss got nine, we lost him three times, we lost (Brendan) Grigg once – you name it, we made the mistake. Credit our guys for taking care of it; they took a butt-chewing, and all year, they’ve responded to those…they responded well; they’re tough as nails, and I thought Blake Wittman was the key to all that.
“He was just so much energy; he was diving on the floor, getting hands on balls; he ignited us, really.”
From there, Jersey simply took over the game, getting to 28-22 ahead at the long break and consistently extending it as the game wore on, Ridenhour leading the way with his 31-point effort. Drake Kanallakan added 11 points for the Panthers, with Jacob Witt and Ryan Herkert adding eight each. Moss led the Knights with 15.
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