Jackson-Milton is coming off a 3-20 season last year, but the Blue Jays took the first step in a turnaround with a 41-36 win over Mathews to kick off the season on Tuesday.

“It was a battle,” Jackson-Milton coach Stephen Procopio said. “Our kids really fought through some adversity there in the first half. We went up and down. It was back-and-forth all night, and I’m just proud of the group that we have that they went out and they battled all night long and finished when it counted.”

Junior Nick McGinnis only had one point but arguably had the biggest impact of the night, playing lockdown defense on Mathews top-scoring threat, Tyler Roscoe. Roscoe was held to 10 points, six of which came in the first half.

“We told him (at halftime), ‘Don’t let Roscoe catch the ball,’ ” Procopio said. “We know Roscoe is their guy. He’s a good player. I told Nick that he has to shut him down. ‘You’re the energy of our team, now go shut him down,’ and he did a phenomenal job.”

Staff photo / Brian Yauger Nick McGinnis (left) of Jackson-Milton defends Vinny Sharp on a Mathews inbound pass.

Mason Robison led the Blue Jays with 13 points, scoring eight in the second half. When push came to shove and his 3-pointers weren’t going in, Robison didn’t shy away from driving to the hoop.

“Mason is our guy, Mason’s our leader,” Procopio said. “He comes to play every single night. He’s a competitor and he just gets after it. His 3-ball wasn’t going down for him — they were face guarding him — so he puts the ball on the floor, puts his head down and gets to the rim and finishes. He’s a very dynamic player. He can do pretty much anything.”

That defense led both teams to start to focus on driving as opposed to shooting from beyond the arc. That’s where the Blue Jays thrived when they have forward AJ Bouch playing the paint. Bouch finished with six points but played a key role in running the offense.

“All six or seven guys that played for us, they’re smart,” Procopio said. “They see AJ Bouch on the block, they know they have to get it to him. We call it ‘mouse in the house.’ Get the ball to him, let him go to work and he can kick it to our guards for wide-open shots.”

The Mustangs were held to 13 points in the second half, scoring only five in the third quarter. Dominic Greenwood was the leading scorer, putting up 11 points.

Mathews coach Mike Weymer knows the season is young and this was one game with many more to come. The two teams have battled in years past, so the game was expected to be a slugfest.

“It was an early-season basketball game,” Weymer said. “A lot of intensity, a lot of passion. We’ve played some pretty tight games with Jackson-Milton over the last couple of years. We didn’t shoot the ball well and 36 points isn’t going to get it done. Credit to Jackson-Milton. They scattered us out really well and did a nice job taking away our shooters, but it’s a long season, and I believe in our boys.”

Mathews opens up its conference schedule with Windham. The Northeastern Athletic Conference is no longer divided into divisions, so this will be the first of two meetings between the Mustangs and Windham.

The Blue Jays look to keep the momentum going when they host Southeast. Like Mathews, the Pirates are a team Jackson-Milton is familiar with, but Procopio doesn’t know what to expect.

“They didn’t lose anyone from last year’s team,” Procopio said. “They played a lot of young guys, so we don’t know too much about them. We’re going to get to work tomorrow and get some film on them and figure it out.”