Boles reaches milestone as Mustangs roll

CORYDON — Murray’s coaches did not want Kenny Boles to know how close he was to reaching the 1,000-point mark for his career.

The Mustangs senior found out anyway.

On his last shot of Tuesday’s Class 1A District 12 trouncing of Mormon Trail, Boles hit the mark.

Boles poured in 18 points as the Mustangs handily defeated the Saints 76-50 at Wayne High School.

Murray, 21-2, advances to Thursday’s District 12 final against Martensdale-St. Marys, 17-6. Tip off is set for 7 p.m. at Interstate 35 High School in Truro.

Martensdale-St. Marys advanced with an 84-46 win over Wayne in the nightcap.

“I don’t think Wook (head coach Darrin Wookey) knew that I knew, but I knew,” Boles said. “It felt pretty good.”

Having it out of the way before Thursday’s showdown with the Blue Devils took a weight off Boles shoulders.

“It feels pretty good since I scored only two points against Martensdale,” Boles said of their Feb. 10 meeting in Martensdale which Murray won 57-55. “It feels pretty good to get to that point and get to this level.”

Boles scored his 1,000th point on his final shot, a layup late in the fourth quarter.

Wookey had tried to keep it a secret to keep Boles from thinking about it.

“We hadn’t even told him personally,” Wookey said. “We kept it a secret because we wanted him to not think about trying to get it, just play the game and hopefully the points would come to him.”

Boles is the sixth player in Wookey’s tenure as head coach to reach 1,000 career points.

“It’s a nice honor for him,” Wookey said. “We’re very proud of him.”

Murray took control early, jumping out to a 16-5 lead five minutes in and a 25-11 margin after one quarter.

The Mustangs broke the Saints’ press with ease, often leading to wide open layups.

“We were getting the ball down the court down the sidelines,” said senior Jack Jones. “We didn’t take care of the ball like we wanted too, but it seemed like when we did break it, we were getting layups.”

Jones provided the spark in the opening half, scoring 15 of his team-high 20 points in the first half.

“My teammates gave me some good passes,” Jones said. “Breaking the press gave me some open looks.”

Having Jones go on a scoring binge adds to the versatility of Murray’s offense.

“He got us up and going with our press, got some easy buckets, hit a three,” Wookey said. “With us, one night to the next, you don’t know who’s going to score. Jack can go off at any given time. (Dustin) Teas can go off at any give time. It was nice to see Jack have a big ball game.”

Jones’ production early even caught his teammates by surprise.

“He was on fire. They couldn’t stop him,” Boles said. “I didn’t realize how good he was doing until I looked up and was like geesh.”

Murray pushed the lead to as many as 24, 40-16, late in the second quarter and led 40-21 at halftime.

The lead did not slip below 15 points at any point in the second half. Murray led 57-28 after three quarters.

Wookey did find a few things to be addressed in today’s practice.

“We didn’t handle some things real good at times,” Wookey said. “We turned the ball over a little too much. We can’t do that Thursday and expect to win. That’s something we’ll address in practice.”

Now is a rematch with Martensdale-St. Marys.

When the two teams met earlier this month, it took a late defensive stand for Murray to pull out a close win.

“We’ll see what happens,” Wookey said. “It’s their bigs versus our bigs. They’ve got a good team. I think we’ve got a good team.”

“It should be a good matchup.”

MT (50) 11 10 7 22

MURR (76) 25 15 17 19

Murray scoring — Reese Held 0 1-2 1. Dustin Teas 5 0-1 11. Owen Tracy 1 0-0 3. Kenny Boles 6 5-9 18. Jack Jones 7 5-6 20. Devin Slaughter 1 0-0 2. Bryce Keller 5 1-2 11. Jimmy Graham 1 0-0 2. Zane Black 0 0-2 0. Thane Simmons 4 0-3 8. Rebounds — 28 (Simmons 11, Boles 7). Assists — 19 (Boles 9). Blocks— 14 (Simmons 13). Fouls — 13. Fouled out — Keller.