JAY – Livermore Falls packed it’s box-and-one defense in tight, daring Jay to try to win Wednesday night’s MVC rivalry matchup from the 3-point arc.

The Tigers were willing to oblige the Andies, provided they were allowed to move in a little closer, say, to the foul line, and as long as the shots were completely uncontested.

Jay sank 18 of 20 free throws and played stingy defense to knock off Livermore, 55-45.

“What’d they shoot from the line, 99 percent?” said Andies coach Ross Hamblin. “I thought what helped Jay win this game from start was their foul shooting. They were unconscious from the line.”

“Actually, I thought our boys outplayed Jay,” he added. “I told them to let them shoot as many layups as they want, as long as they don’t get any layups.”

The Andies (1-5) played box-and-one, contesting only Justin Wells from the perimeter. The Tigers (3-3) responded by spreading the scoring around, putting four of their five scorers in double figures, led by Ryan DiPompo and Brad Loon with 13 points apiece.

“Their zone kind of threw off our game a little. When you can’t get your shot underneath, you know they’re going to foul you,” said Loon, who scored nine of his 13 from the charity stripe.

Levi Armandi led the Andies with 19 points while Brad Bryant added 18. Shane Bourgault had 12 off the bench for the Tigers, while Jacob Farrington added 10. Wells had seven points and nine rebounds.

Jay never trailed after falling down, 22-20, midway through the second quarter. Livermore made several runs at the lead, the last coming on a Armandi trey from the right corner that made it 42-41 with 4:12 to play.

As they did all night, the Tigers responded, tallying a Wells fallaway jumper and a three-point play from Bourgault to begin an 11-1 run in which they held the Andies without a field goal for over three and a-half minutes.

“We played pretty good defense all night long,” said Jay coach Frank Williams, whose team held Livermore to 34 percent shooting. “We tried some zone and then we went mostly man-to-man in the second half and tried to force the tempo a little bit. We hit our foul shots when we got to the line and came up big on the defensive boards, too.”

Farrington tallied nine of his 10 points in the first quarter to help the Tigers out to an early 16-15 lead, but the slow pace seemed to favor the Andies. Livermore took the lead on an Armandi jumper, but the Tigers had an answer, dragging a two-point lead into the intermission thanks to back-to-back hoops from DiPompo.

Armandi tied the game again to start the second half, but Loon gave the Tigers the lead for good with 5:45 left in the third quarter.

“I told the kids to settle down, run the offense and wait for a good shot, because the shots were there, especially against the box-and-one,” Williams said. “We needed some other kids to step up with them doing a box-and-one on Justin and they did.”