JOLIET — Joliet West boys basketball coach Jeremy Krieger demands defense from his players.

Saturday afternoon, he got it.

The Tigers (4-4, 2-2) were intense on the defensive end from the opening tip, as well as being efficient on the offensive end, in a 67-38 win over Southwest Prairie Conference rival Joliet Central. West scored the game’s first 19 points, including 10 from Jayden Martin, who finished with a game-high 24. West also held Central to single digits in the first, third and fourth quarters.

“Coach preaches defense, and we work a lot on our defense,” Martin said. “We’re still figuring things out, since this was only our eighth game of the year. We’re getting better.”

There was no argument about that fact from Joliet Central coach Lawrence Thompson.

“We were outplayed from the start,” Thompson said. “Credit Joliet West and their staff for having their kids ready to go. My job as a head coach is to have the kids ready to play, and I didn’t do my job as far as that goes today.”

The Steelmen (0-7, 0-2) were forced into a 10-day quarantine at the start of the season and got back on the court Wednesday in a loss to Joliet Catholic Academy.

“It’s pretty much like starting all over,” Thompson said. “Our kids played hard and we got it to where it was close to 10 points a couple of times. When that happened, they picked up their defensive intensity and we didn’t have an answer.”

West took a 19-6 lead into the second quarter and extended the advantage to 39-24 at halftime. Central pulled to within 33-21 on a three-pointer by Justin Depluzer (9 points). West answered with a three-pointer by Justus McNair and got three points from Shelton Gayton before halftime.

“This is my third year in charge of the program, and we preach defense,” Krieger said. “The last two years, we were pretty successful. We have a young team this year and we want them to know that they don’t just put the jersey on and success happens. So we went back to the drawing board a little bit and have been working hard on our defense.

“We’ve been getting better every time out. Jayden Martin has been on the varsity since he was a freshman. We start one senior [Skylar Crudup], two juniors [McNair and Martin], a sophomore [6-7 Drew King], and a freshman [Jeremiah Fears], so we are still figuring some things out. We will have learning experiences in these November and December games and then have a big challenge at the Pontiac Tournament.

“Early starts like the one we had today tend to lead to good finishes, so we want to start strong and try to hold teams to 40 points or less. If you can hold a high school team to 40 points or less, your chances of winning are pretty good.”

West scored the first seven points of the second half, as Martin scored on a putback and Fears (14 points) followed with a three-pointer and a fast-break layup. The Tigers finished the quarter leading 50-32, and outscored the Steelmen 17-6 in the fourth.

After Martin and Fears, the Tigers got eight points from Aaron Brown and four each from McNair and King, who led with 10 rebounds. Anthony Nava led Joliet Central with 11 points, while Josh Adim added 10.

“It doesn’t matter who scores for us,” Martin said. “We are a very unselfish team. We pass the ball and move it around for the best shot.”