Boys Basketball: Jake Olson leads Morris past Coal City

Updated: January 3, 2012 9:41PM

Jake Olson scored all of his team’s third-period points, as well as the first 18 Morris points of the second half, as the Redskins were 48-39 winners Tuesday night at Coal City.

Morris missed nine of its first 10 shots in the third period before Olson got hot inside with five consecutive baskets. He started the stretch with a rebound basket for the ninth tie of the game, got two inside feeds from Austin Feeney for layups, and closed the period with a baby hook from the middle of the lane.

“We have a lot of guys that work so hard,” said Olson, whose season high is 30 points. “When you have wide-open shots that are not falling, it starts to play mind games with you. But our guards did a good job looking inside and kicking the ball inside.”

Olson outscored Coal City 10-3 to close the period and by a 16-5 margin until the midway point of the fourth quarter.

“We were a little sluggish after a couple of days off,” said Morris coach Joe Blumberg, whose team won its third in a row to improve to 7-5. “I think for a while we were trying to do too much offensively. But Austin found the post inside and we played much more together later in the ball game.”

Morris outscored Coal City (2-10) 24-13 to close the game, a stretch that started with Olson’s follow basket, one of his 12 rebounds.

The last Coalers lead was 29-28 on a three-pointer by Matt Halloran, who finished with 14 points.

The teams played a tight, although sloppy, first half, when they combined for more turnovers than field goals.

Neither team held more than a four-point lead in the first half, which had seven ties and ended with Morris ahead 22-20. The Redskins held the Coalers to just one basket in the last 5:30 of the half and outscored them 8-2 to close the half.

Coal City started strong but made just 2 of 12 field goal attempts in a second period in which it also had seven turnovers. Coal City had 11 turnovers and just eight field goals in the first half, while Morris had 10 of each.

There were five ties in a quickly played opening period, which ended with Halloran beating the buzzer with a three for Coal City and a 14-11 lead.

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