White jerseys fluttering in the open court, navy blue shorts whisking past hapless defenders, blue-laced Nike sneakers flying down the sidelines, the Jesuit Varsity Rangers, with their high-powered, full court offense and strong transition game, have carved out a top three standing in District 9-5A regular season competition.
Coming off a 10-1 stretch to end 2011 and start 2012, the Jesuit Rangers Varsity basketball team has been on a roll, playing inspired basketball. Both veteran players, like Steven Spieth ’13 and Tim Sayers ’12, as well as Varsity newcomers like Bryan Stankey ’13, Nathan Krog ’13, Grant Hatzmann ’13, and JD Waggoner ’13 have played a part in the Rangers’ success.
After this impressive start that featured only four losses in 20 games, the Rangers started a season-ending stretch of divisional matchups with games against two unmatched divisional opponents, Skyline High School and Richardson High School.
After beating both Richardson and Skyline quite handily, the Rangers aimed to go 5-1 in divisional games against Lake Highlands on Friday, January 13. The Rangers played a hard fought road game against the Wildcats, but came up just short in the fourth quarter, losing 51-47.
This game followed the Rangers’ usual pattern of late game heroics. With a third quarter deficit of 40-24, the Rangers resiliently fought back, but, this time, were not able to eek out the win despite outscoring Lake Highlands 23-11 in the fourth quarter. Steven Spieth, continuing his great scoring stretch, tied Wildcat James Lonergan for most overall points, with 18. This hard-fought loss dropped the Rangers to 4-2 in the division, while keeping the Wildcats in contention with a 3-2 divisional record.
After this tough loss, the Rangers faced a 3-21 Samuell team at home on Tuesday, January 17. This game featured some new names in double digits, including junior Nathan Krog, who had by far his best game of the season, as well as senior swingman Reid Leinbaugh, who scored 13 points in his first outing back from injury.
Both Krog and Leinbaugh led all scorers with 13 points, while point guard Jared Johnson ’12 had one of the best games of his season, with 10 points. Another new contributor was junior Joe Payne, injured for most of the past two seasons.
Payne’s teammates are looking forward to seeing how Payne’s athleticism contributes to the success of the team moving forward. “I was pumped to see Joe back on the floor,” said junior Bryan Stankey, “especially after all of the disheartening injuries he has had to endure.” The Rangers’ 79-56 thrashing of Samuell was a big confidence booster, making them 4-2 in divisional play, second only to Richardson Berkner.
After crushing Samuell, the Jesuit Rangers faced the Sunset Bison, who have yet to win a divisional game all season. Jumping to a 44-17 half time lead, the Rangers did not look back, running away to 69-39 win. DJ Udofia ’12 had his best outing of the season, leading all scorers with 17 points. Leinbaugh and defensive specialist JD Waggoner ’13 also had big nights, scoring 16 and 15 points, respectively.
On top of this, the Rangers kept all Sunset scorers from reaching double digits. This win boosted their divisional record to 5-2 and helped build a lot of confidence as the Rangers moved into the thick of the divisional stretch.
After this strong divisional showing, the Jesuit Rangers faced north Dallas rivals WT White, on Tuesday, January 25, for the second time this season. The first two quarters were very close, with Jesuit holding on by one point at the half, 27-26. However, Tuesday night was a very rainy evening and as the game went on, more and more rain droplets came dripping down on to the court at Loos Fieldhouse. With conditions becoming harder and harder to play in, the referees decided to cancel the game, postponing the second half to Wednesday night.
The two teams met again on Wednesday night to resume the close game they had started the night before. In the surprisingly close game, the Rangers eked out a win, in the final minutes of the game, 59-57, despite WT White’s 16-6 run in the fourth quarter.
In one of the most important games of the season, swingman Reid Leinbaugh showed up big for the Rangers, putting up a whopping 20 points to lead all scorers. Steven Spieth and JD Waggoner chipped in with 12 points and 11 points, respectively, while the Longhorns’ Jaylon Pullen and Ike Agusi led WT White with a combined 32 points.
After scraping away a win against their North Dallas divisional rivals, the Jesuit Rangers faced the Richardson Berkner Rams for the second and final time this regular season. This time, the big game was played at home for the Rangers, who were welcomed on to the court by an inspired crowd donning gold t-shirts.
Xavier Thomas led the way for Berkner, leading all scorers in the game with a 22-point performance. Despite the solid play of the
20-6 Rams, the Rangers kept things tantalizingly close throughout the entire game. The first half ended with Berkner leading by the smallest of margins, 32-30.
Despite this very close start, the Rangers had trouble keeping up with Berkner’s high powered scoring attack throughout the second half, as they allowed the Rams to outscore them 28-19. The Rangers lost a relatively close game, 60-49, despite playing a great game against one of their biggest divisional opponents.
Reid Leinbaugh and Steven Spieth led the way for Jesuit, with 19 points and 14 points, respectively. One of the most noticeable aspects of this loss was a lack of depth for the Rangers. Despite usually having at least 8 or 9 guys scoring every night, the Rangers finished with just 6 players putting points on the scoreboard.
Despite the loss, the Rangers played one of the better games of their season, both offensively and defensively. This defeat, however, drops them to third place in the division for the first time this season, with Lake Highlands, also 6-3 in the division, moving into second place.
Richardson Berkner’s stronghold on the division grew even more with this win over the Jesuit Rangers, advancing their divisional record to 8-1. The Rangers, however, still have as good a chance as anyone to win this division. “The team has done a good job of coming together after [senior David Lacey] went out and during Reid’s temporary absence,” said Bryan Stankey. “Everybody’s playing well in place of them and we hope to keep it up.”
With five regular season games left, all divisional matchups, Jesuit looks to go 11-3 in divisional play. Like Stankey said, if they are able to work together cohesively and play the fast paced game that they know they can, the Rangers could easily find themselves in yet another UIL playoff bracket.
