Aberdeen Christian used some Jett fuel and solid defense to pick up a big boys’ basketball win Tuesday night at the Aberdeen Civic Arena.

Brooks Jett exploded for career-high totals of 27 points and 16 rebounds to lead the Knights to a 62-45 non-conference victory over once-beaten Wolsey-Wessington. It marked Christian’s first win over the Warbirds in program history.

Jett had 12 points and seven rebounds in the first six and half minutes of the game to give Christian a lead it never lost.

“He’s incredible. He really is. It’s hard to believe he’s a 15-year-old sophomore,” said Christian coach Matt Rohrbach. “He really set the tone tonight … but I really felt like everybody was locked in from the get-go as far as what our defensive principles were.”

The Knights were able to open a double-digit lead in the first quarter, and while the Warbirds made a surge early in the second period, they were never able to get on track, trailing by 14 at the half.

“They came out and played really well. They just kind of took it to us,” said Wolsey-Wessington coach Hayden Hooks. “They were the more aggressive team. We were a step slow all night.”

It was Jett who set the tone on offense for Christian, propelling the Knights to a stellar start.

“Matt really emphasized coming out with a lot of energy,” Jett said. “They’re going to want to play fast, and we can play fast, too. We were getting stops on defense and getting buckets on offense.”

That defense was able to contain a high-power Wolsey-Wessington offense. Rohrbach said a variety of players made major contributions.

“There’s so many game balls you coud give out defensively, but there’s three people in my mind who really stood out,” Rohrbach said. “I thought Jett Johnson had the best defensive game of his entire career. … Ellis Russell’s helpside defense, he was everywhere getting his hands in. … Then Luke Kaiser, I told him right after the game, you can guard anybody in the state if you play defense the way you did tonight.”

That defense prevented the Warbirds from gaining traction and forced them to play uphill the entire contest.

“We kind of came out sleeping,” said Wolsey-Wessington’s Moshe Richmond. “We talked about doing better in huddles, but we didn’t really apply it to the game that well.”

Richmond finished with team-high totals of 16 points and eight rebounds. He said the Warbirds need to focus on themselves heading forward as they battle some of the state’s top teams for seed points in Region 2B.

“I think from now on we just have to focus on ourselves, though,” Richmond said, “stay locked in to what we want to.”

Hooks knows how valuable each game is throughout the course of the season in the battle for those seed points.

“We talk about every night is the most important game of the year. That’s the mentality that we do go into the game,” Hooks said. “We didn’t play our best the last two, so we’ve just gotta get back to doing what we do and we’ll have a lot of success down the road.”

The Knights, 4-2 on the season, will look to continue to bring the same type of effort they had on Tuesday into the rest of their campaign, especially on the defensive end.

“We really dug in on defense and worked hard,” Jett said of the victory over the Warbirds. ” We knew what they wanted to do. We tried to take away the key factors and we did.”

Christian plays has a road game at Potter County on Thursday, before facing Timber Lake in a classic at Redfield on Saturday.

While saying there is still a lot of work left to be done, Rohrbach was pleased with his team’s effort against Wolsey-Wessington.

“I thought we were as close to playing a 32-minute ball game as we have been this year,” Rohrbach said.

WOLSEY-WESSINGTON (7-2): Caleb Richmond 2 4-6 8, Peyton Rainford 2 0-0 4, Moshe Richmond 7 1-4 16, Larz Tvedt 3 1-1 8, Sawyer Nelson 2 0-0 4, Colin Hughes 1 0-0 2, Harley Roberts 1 0-0 3. Totals 18 5-11 45.

ABERDEEN CHRISTIAN (4-2): Jett Johnson 2 1-2 6, Dylan Hofer 2 0-0 4, Ellis Russell 3 2-2 8, Luke Kaiser 3 0-1 7, Brooks Jett 12 2-4 27, Raymond Rodriguez-Martinez 1 0-0 2, Grady Jett 4 0-0 8. Totals 27 5-9 62.

Wolsey-Wessington 11 24 32 45

Aberdeen Christian 21 38 52 62

3-point field goals – M. Richmond, Tvedt 2, Roberts; Johnson, Kaiser, B. Jett.  Total fouls – Wolsey-Wessington 10; Aberdeen Christian 11. Rebounds – Wolsey-Wessington (M. Richmond 8); Aberdeen Christian 32 (B. Jett 16). Turnovers – Wolsey-Wessington 11; Aberdeen Christian 14.