Barely two minutes into his team’s 70–63 loss to Jefferson, DeKalb coach Mike Reynolds slammed a clipboard onto the ground, the marker flying over the Barbs’ bench and four rows into the stands on a night when little seemed to get away from his team.

DeKalb turned the ball over 20 times in the Class 4A DeKalb Regional semifinal loss, and the J-Hawks converted them into 25 points. The Barbs’ first eight points of the game were from turnovers, and by the time Reynolds called timeout with 5:50 in the first quarter, the Barbs had already turned it over four times.

The end result was a lot of easy buckets for Jefferson against a DeKalb team that has struggled to score this year.

“The first half we were really choppy,” Reynolds said. “I think the nerves might have got to us a little bit in the first half.”

The Barbs (13-19) haven’t beaten a team this season that scored more than 50 points. Jefferson (11-19) had a 38-21 lead by halftime thanks to a late surge sparked by Jaden Williams, who had a pair of steals in the last two minutes leading to 3-pointers, one for Mike Townsend and one of his own at the buzzer, his fourth of the half.

He finished with 19 points, seven steals and six rebounds.

“He’s very well capable of that,” Jefferson coach Leslie Robinson said. “He can get hot and the rim will be as big as the ocean at that point.”

DeKalb trimmed it to nine in the third quarter, but again Williams led a late-quarter surge as the lead ballooned to 16. The Barbs opened the fourth on a 10-3 run, cutting the lead to 58-49 thanks in part to a couple of steals by Bryan Miller that led to a pair of buckets for Aaron Ziga, who finished with a game-high 21 points.

Jefferson scored the next nine to open up an 18-point lead with 2:50 left after a 3-pointer by Malakhi Robinson, who finished with 17 points and three steals.

DeKalb responded with 11 straight, capped with Miller’s fourth steal of the night and a three-point play on the offensive end. Miller finished with six points and a team-high six rebounds.

That made the score 67-60 with 33.2 seconds left, but the Barbs wouldn’t get any closer than six the rest of the way.

“I knew they were physical and I knew they were going to compete the whole time. I knew this,” Robinson said. “So part of our game plan was handling the run. ... They’re a more physical team than they look on film. I knew that, I told my guys we have to be physical and we have to be ready.”

Reynolds said he felt the Barbs were coming into the game on a hot streak, winning games last week at Metea Valley and Geneseo in which they could have been considered underdogs.

He said the team showed the same kind of fight Wednesday.

“We have a lot of heart and the culture of our program is just to be fighters,” Reynolds said. “If they learn any lesson in life, life’s not that easy as the adults know. You just have to keep fighting when something isn’t good, and it wasn’t good today.”

Zyair Hudson had 10 points and three steals off the bench for the J-Hawks. Alejandro Almonaci added 10 points while Durant Stokes had 13 points and six rebounds.

The J-Hawks advance to face NIC-10 foe Auburn, a 73-36 winner over Huntley in the other semifinal. The Knights swept the season series with a 93-58 home win and a 75-49 road win. Robinson said if the J-Hawks turn it over 18 times like they did Wednesday, nine of those coming in the fourth quarter, it won’t be a close game.

“If we turn the ball over like we did in the second half, we’ll lose by 20,” Robinson said. “I think if we go man-to-man and we turn the ball over, it will be an interesting game.”

DeKalb seniors Jack Rosenow and Derrion Straughter had 10 points each, with Rosenow grabbing five boards and Straughter finishing with six rebounds and four steals. Myles Newman had 15 points and five rebounds.

The season ends for DeKalb, which had won a regional title in three of the last four seasons but lost five starters from last year’s team, including a four-year starter and a three-year starter.

“I think we probably overachieved at times this year,” Reynolds said. “We have a lot of young guys and guys that just haven’t had a lot of varsity experience. I think we had a top 20 schedule in the state. We competed and battled. We got our head kicked in sometimes but the next day we always came to practice and tried to be better, and like I told the seniors in there, I’m proud as heck of them.”