FORTVILLE — They’re Mt. Vernon’s 1-2 punch, double the trouble for Marauder opponents.
They’re young. They’re talented. They’re twins.
Mt. Vernon sophomores Amhad Jarrard and Armon Jarrard are helping pave the way for a youthful Marauders team that is coming on strong toward the tail end of the boys’ basketball regular season.
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Mt. Vernon has won three of its last five, with one of the losses coming to No. 3 Lawrence Central. Two of the wins are courtesy of last-second baskets by Armon.
He had the decider on Feb. 1 with two seconds to go in a 54-52 overtime win over Hoosier Heritage Conference foe Delta, a team that has lost just four games all season. He posted another game-winner with only 1.6 ticks remaining in a 46-45 win over a talented-Mooresville team on Feb. 11.
Armon, a 6-foot-1 guard, leads the team in scoring at 11.4 points per game. He is second to his brother in steals per game (1.3), along with being second in field goal percentage (50 percent) and 3-pointers made (19).
Amhad, a 6-3 forward/guard, averages 10.4 points, second to Armon, and is the team’s second leading rebounder (4.9 per game). He leads the team in assists (3.6 per game).
It’s more than just stats for the twin tandem.
“They’re competitive and they want to win,” Mt. Vernon head coach Ben Rhoades said. “When we get beat, they’re not worried about their personal stats. When one of them doesn’t have a good game, they want our team to win.
“Their parents have done a really good job, it’s obvious. (Amhad and Armon) are humble, hard workers and gym rats. They want to be good and they ask questions about what it takes to be good.”
They are figuring out what it takes to be good and help their team win. Both have adjusted their games accordingly to benefit the lineup.
Since third grade, the pair has always been on the floor together, but that changed earlier this season.
Amhad, who had been averaging 19.5 points per game through the team’s first four contests, suffered an injured hand early in the team’s Dec. 20 game against Shelbyville. He missed four games, returning Jan. 10 against county rival Greenfield-Central.
“It was kind of rough because he is our main scorer,” Armon said. “I knew somebody had to step up, so I had to step up.”
“It was hard, but it was kind of good,” Amhad said of missing time on the floor with his brother and teammates.
He didn’t like being away from the action, but he liked what he was seeing out of his younger brother (by 30 minutes). “It gave him confidence for when I came back.”
“I wasn’t taking as many shots when he was playing,” Armon said. “When he went out I started taking a few more extra shots. When he came back it gave me more confidence that I could do it.”
As much as Rhoades hated seeing one of his players unable to play, being without Amhad forced others to take new roles, in particular, Armon.
“The silver lining is, Armon had never stepped up. Everyone watched Amhad do everything on our team. I think Armon, by default, had to do some other things,” Rhoades said.
“Armon is the leading scorer for us now. He’s passed Amhad. I think it changed the dynamic of who we were, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. When you have young kids some other kids had to step up.”
Armon averaged 15.4 points per game when Amhad was out, including 23 in a 48-44 victory over Park Tudor.
Since his return, Amhad’s game has changed, too. He isn’t scoring as often as he was prior to his injury, but he hasn’t needed to with his brother’s offensive emergence. Amhad’s 3.6 per game assist average ranks fourth in the HHC. Since his return to the lineup, the last nine games, he is dishing out 4.6 per contest.
“I feel like we’re coming together more as a team. Everybody on the team is playing better and doing more stuff,” Amhad said.
“He figures it out what he needs to do to help us on any given night,” Rhoades said of Amhad, but he also believes the same would have happened if the roles were reversed.
“They’re kind of clones of each other and that’s what makes them unique to me,” the coach added. “There’s not one that I look at and think this one is the one that is going to do this or that. To me, they are equal. Each day, I think they both bring so many positives to the team.”
