Blazers Continue Post Season Run

The John Wood Men's Basketball team opened up the Region 24 Tournament by hosting the #6 seed Rend Lake College Warriors for the quarterfinal matchup yesterday, with the winner moving onto the semifinal game on Saturday against #2 seed ICC at the host school Rend Lake.

John Wood would start out fast by scoring the first six out of eight points thanks to some quick explosive energy and defense. John Wood would continue the pressure thanks to the quickness of freshman guard Jordan Shelton. Shelton would nail a deep three pointer with 10 minutes left in the first half to give the Blazers a 15-12 lead, and they wouldn't be done yet. Next it would be freshman Jakeb Wallingford sinking a jumper from the left wing to bring the score to 28-19 in favor of John Wood with 6 minutes left in the first half.

However, Rend Lake would make a charge with 3 minutes left in the half and score 5 points in 40 seconds to cut John Wood's led to 31-29 with 2 minutes left. John Wood would sore again thanks to Shelton and take a 37-33 lead into halftime.

The second half would be a back-and-forth contest, until Shelton and Joshua Talton would score 4 points in 2 minutes and give the Blazers a 60-59 lead again with 5 minutes left in the game. Talton would strike again, this time with a wide open three from the corner to extend the Blazer lead with just 3 minutes remaining. John Wood would go to hang on by the final score of 75-61 and advance to the Semifinal game of the Region 24 tournament. They will take on #2 seed Illinois Central College Cougars at 3pm Saturday and the winner will play for the Region 24 championship on Sunday.

John Wood Leading Scorers:

Jordan Shelton: 26 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 steals

Joshua Talton: 15 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 assists

Nolan Deitrich: 10 points, and 2 assists