High school boys basketball: Bulldogs shake slow start, soar past Eagles

It took Judge a while to get going Wednesday night, but once the Bulldogs did, there was no stopping them.

Trailing by four early in the second quarter, Judge shot 76 percent the rest of the way on its home floor in coasting to a 72-54 victory over Skyline.

Senior point guard Zach Myaer led the way with 29 points in a dominant performance in which he shot 78 percent from the field, most coming in the paint, as Skyline's defense had no answer for his dribble penetration.

"He's a great little player. He's really quick," said Judge coach Jim Yerkovich. "He's only 5-foot-8, but he's as valuable as anyone 6-foot-8 because he does so many things."

To go along with his career-high 29 points, Myaer added five rebounds, five assists and four steals. Myaer's previous career high was the 23 points against Hillcrest on Dec. 11.

As a team, Judge shot 68 percent from the field to improve to 6-3 this preseason against 5A and 4A teams.

Judge's 6-foot-10 big man, Will Whitt, chipped in with 16 points and 12 rebounds by overpowering an undersized Skyline team, whose tallest contributor is 6-foot-2.

Whitt's emergence in the second quarter, along with a defensive switch, turned the game around for the Bulldogs. With his team trailing 16-15, Whitt scored eight straight points to put Judge in front for good at 23-19 midway through the quarter.

At the same time, a defensive adjustment made things much tougher on Skyline after the opening quarter.

"We were having real trouble guarding them, we made a defensive change which helped us, we played a combination of defenses instead of a man," said Yerkovich.

Despite Judge's hot shooting, Skyline (2-6) was still very much in the game to start the third quarter only down 30-24. Very methodically though, Judge pulled away with back-to-back three-point plays by Myaer pushing the lead to 46-32 with 2:38 remaining in the third quarter.

Judge increased the cushion to 69-45 late in the game before the cold-shooting Eagles finally found their stroke again with three 3-pointers in the final two minutes.

Taylor Lithgow scored 17 points to lead Skyline (2-6), which only shot 32 percent from the field,

e-mail: jedward@desnews.com