Insider: What's a Jug Rox? For the 1st time in two decades, it's a winning basketball team

SHOALS – Before the high school sectional begins later this month, Bryson Abel will lead the only basketball team in the world with the name “Jug Rox” along a dirt trail off U.S. Highway 50 and through the quiet woods to the largest freestanding table rock formation east of the Mississippi River.

There, the Shoals Jug Rox will kiss the Jug Rock, this oddity of a 60-foot high rock formation that is shaped like a jug and stands alone in the forest. It is a new tradition started by Abel, a 1998 Shoals graduate, when he took over the program four seasons ago. “Embrace what you have,” was Abel’s philosophy. Many of the players had never taken the trail down to the Jug Rock, only passing by it on Highway 50.

“I’ve lived here my whole life and never been down to it,” said assistant coach Tim Sorrells, also the Shoals baseball coach. “The seniors did it their freshman year and now it is a tradition.”

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For years, this Martin County school of 193 students has been known for two things – the Jug Rox nickname and a losing basketball tradition. It was not always that way, at least on the second part. Shoals, a community of 750 tucked away in the hills of Martin County along the East Fork of the White River and between basketball bluebloods like Washington, Loogootee, Barr-Reeve, Orleans and North Daviess, achieved intermittent success until the 1990s.

Then losing set in. There was a 46-game losing streak from November 1990 to December 1992. Not a single winning season since 1996-97. Barr-Reeve, located 15 miles west on Highway 50, is a basketball galaxy away. Shoals last defeated Barr-Reeve in December 1986. There have been 43 consecutive losses since. Barr-Reeve has won 13 sectional titles and made five state finals appearances since 1986.

“We were the homecoming game for a lot of teams,” junior Max Fischer said. “A lot of automatic ‘Ws’ on paper before the games were even played.”

But there is an undercurrent of change around Shoals basketball. Around the same time Abel took over and embraced the Jug Rock tradition, the Jug Rox began to represent something other than losing basketball. Playing mostly freshmen, Shoals went 3-21 in Abel’s first season. That was followed by 7-18 in 2016-17 and 11-13 last season.

Shoals is 11-7 with five regular-season games remaining, starting with Friday’s game at Vincennes Rivet. The first winning season in 22 years is in reach. But do not let Ryan Hawkins, one of seven seniors and a third-generation Shoals basketball player, hear about that.

“I couldn’t even tell you what our record is right now,” Hawkins said. “I’m focused on winning, but the biggest thing to me is sectional time. My grandpa always talked about that, too. Cutting down the nets and having the whole town supporting you – it would mean everything to me.”

 A sectional title celebration, if and when it does happen, might last until the July 4 Catfish Festival. Shoals has never won one. There are five team photos in the Shoals’ gym of the volleyball sectional title teams from 1985, ’86, ’87, ’88 and ’93. That is all. Winning a sectional championship here would mean as much here as a state title.

“I can’t imagine what that would be like,” senior guard John Sukup said. “I was at the girls sectional on Saturday and saw Vincennes Rivet win. I wish we could feel that just once – the fans storming the court and getting the trophy. It would mean the world.”

It remains a dream, though more tangible than it has been in years.

'You lose so much that people sort of accepted it'

Abel’s father, Alan Abel, was a senior at Shoals in 1963. The team was 18-7 that season. The next year, led by Howard Pratt, who would go on to star at Evansville, Shoals was 22-1 before losing to Loogootee, 71-64, in the sectional championship at Washington in the old Hatchet House. The Jug Rox had defeated Loogootee twice during the regular season.

“That ’64 team was a really good ballclub,” Alan Abel said. “We always had good crowds here. The gym was filled every night we played. Over time, I think it got to where you lose so much that people sort of accepted it.”

It was not always that way, though. Shoals was featured on the Indianapolis News sports cover in February 1940 with the headline “Can Hatchets Crack These Jug Rox?” Answer: They could. Shoals lost 41-23 to Washington in the first round of the sectional.

Eight times, Shoals has lost in a sectional championship game. The 1947 team lost a 42-40 heartbreaker to Washington Catholic, the first parochial school to win a sectional title. The 1977 team lost to Washington, 70-51. The 1986 team came close, losing 54-48. There were hard-fought losses in 1994 to Barr-Reeve, 63-53, and 1996 to Loogootee, 47-43.

“I moved here from Edgewood my eighth grade year in 1993,” said Bryson Able, whose father coached the girls team at Shoals. “We had a competitive group coming through at that time. But we could never sustain success. We kind of became the brunt of the joke when it came to losing.”

Abel began coaching the current group of seniors when they were in sixth grade. It was Klayton Tichenor’s first year of competitive basketball.

“I didn’t know the rules, didn’t know the plays,” Tichenor said. “I was like, ‘A 2-3 zone? What is that?’”

But it was the start of something. That group won more than it lost. Before their freshman season, Abel was hired to take over a program that had won nine games over the previous three seasons. Shoals promptly went 3-21.

“It was not pretty,” Tichenor said. “We knew at Shoals it was, ‘You’re lucky to win three games.’ We didn’t like that.”

Tichenor, a 6-6 forward, set the pace. After his freshman year, he was in the gym every day getting up between 100 and 500 shots. “We were done with that losing attitude,” he said.

Slowly but surely, the vibe around Shoals basketball started to turn. A measuring stick game came last season against Loogootee. The Jug Rox snapped a 27-game losing streak to the rival Lions with a resounding 57-44 victory. Proving it was no fluke, Shoals won at Loogootee 43-36 in December to push the winning streak to two.

“I don’t think they are too happy with us,” Hawkins said.

Jaycobson Wagoner, a senior guard at Shoals, has insight into the Shoals-Loogootee rivalry, if it can be called that. He still lives two blocks from the Loogootee school. His father, Pat, played for Jack Butcher at Loogootee. His uncle, Mike, coached Loogootee’s 2012 state championship team. His brother, Jayden, was a 1,000-point scorer at Loogootee. Jaycobson transferred to Shoals last year.

 “Growing up in Loogootee, you felt like you were just born to beat Shoals,” he said. “I remember we came over here in sixth grade and they beat us. We got our butts chewed. They were good and we didn’t respect them.”

Respect has been earned over the long haul on a deep and balanced team. The Jug Rox rely heavily on Tichenor, who averages 18.1 points and 6.2 rebounds per game, but they also have capable players in juniors Dayson Wright (7.0 ppg, 3.8 rebounds) and Fischer (6.9 ppg), sophomore Reece Sherrill (6.5 ppg, 2.9 rebounds) and seniors Sukup (4.8 ppg, 2.0 steals), Wagoner (4.6 ppg), Kenyon Sorrells (4.0 ppg), Hawkins (3.8 ppg, 2.5 rebounds) and J.D. Troutman (2.2 ppg).

“Unlike other teams I’ve seen here, they don’t give up,” Wagoner said. “The fact they haven’t won a sectional has to go in the trash. Things are meant to be changed.”

Respect

Norm Beasley knows what is like to part of that breakthrough team. Beasley, 77, played on Odon’s only sectional championship team in 1959. The tiny Bulldogs won a regional, too, before falling in double-overtime to New Albany, 70-68, in the Evansville Semistate final.

“I still see somebody every day who will bring it up,” Beasley said.

Beasley coached at Shoals from 1973-80. He still lives a quarter-mile from the school and regularly attends games.

“If the Jug Rox won a sectional, it would be huge,” Beasley said. “It would bring out people you haven’t seen in years, all the letter jackets and everything. But Barr-Reeve is the monster in the room when it comes to the sectional.”

There is that Barr-Reeve problem. In Class A Sectional 63, the Vikings are still the team to beat with a 16-2 record under first-year coach Josh Thompson. Barr-Reeve returned the core of a team that went 24-5 last season and reached the semistate before falling to eventual state champion Morristown.

Two weeks ago, Barr-Reeve sent Shoals packing with a 57-30 loss. The Jug Rox shot 0-for-17 from the 3-point line. It was the start of a cold shooting stretch for Shoals in a three-game losing streak that includes losses to South Knox (52-40) and Paoli (53-43).

“Barr-Reeve is not unbeatable,” Fischer said. “You can’t win if you don’t hit shots. We didn’t put together a very good game. We’ll get a chance to see them again in the sectional, most likely.”

There is no backing into a sectional title in this pocket of the state, where traditions and rivalries stretch back generations. But as much as the Jug Rox would love to bring some hardware to the Jug Rock, they have achieved something almost as fulfilling: Respect.

“It’s a community thing,” Fischer said. “It feels good to walk around without having your head down because you lost by 50. It feels good people tell you ‘Good job’ and ‘Good luck.’ That wasn’t the case here a few years ago.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.