Boys basketball: Jamari Meeks making his presence felt for Kaneland

MAPLE PARK – Jamari Meeks is less than a month into his Kaneland boys basketball varsity career – but he’s already opening eyes.

To Knights senior forward Bryce Ebert, Meeks, only a junior, brings a “very high intensity” to practice.

It’s beginning to translate into games, as Kaneland’s convincing 69-32 win Friday over Sandwich helped illustrate.

Kaneland (4-2, 3-0 Interstate Eight Conference) was coming off a huge, 75-45, win over Ottawa on Wednesday. Will Cushman, Brett David and Meeks combined for 39 points in that game.

On Friday, Cushman finished with 13 points and three rebounds, Ebert had 11 points and five rebounds, while Ben Durbala had eight points and three rebounds.

Sandwich, working through injuries and overall varsity inexperience, limped into halftime trailing, 43-16. The Indians shot only 1 for 11 in the first quarter and 3 for 12 in the second quarter and had 15 first half turnovers.

Sandwich (0-8) didn’t score its first field goal, a layup by Ian Kelson, until eight seconds were left in the first quarter.

The Indians look much different than a year ago. All five starters and six of their top seven players graduated. To add to the woes, Sandwich’s top returning player, Rex Avery, tore his ACL in the summer.

On the positive end, however, Sandwich recently had point guard Cade Miller return from a meniscus injury. Miller, with only three varsity practices this season, returned against Morris on Tuesday in a double overtime loss.

Miller had eight points and four rebounds to pace Sandwich. Kelson had five points and two rebounds, while Jacob Heilemeier had four points and four rebounds.

“A lot of inexperience, even with those guys all coming back,” Sandwich coach Jim Braddish said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that just haven’t played varsity basketball before.

“In these kinds of situations, where you play a good team who is physical and gets up into you like [Kaneland does], we’ve had a hard time with that,” Braddish said. “We’ve had a real hard time with the pressure, the physicality of it.”

Ebert, a varsity returner from last year, is helping lead a bit of a surge for the Knights. In Kaneland’s two losses this season – by a combined five points – Ebert missed both because of illness.

“We were right in those games; we thought we had a shot to win both of those games,” Kaneland coach Ernie Colombe said.

Colombe noted the Knights have cut down on turnovers in the past few games.

“We started the season, I think, turning the ball over 20 times a game,” Colombe said. “In the last two games, we’ve cut that down to under 10 [each].”