Lutheran senior has scored a school-record 992 of them so far

JACOB OGNACEVIC goes up for two of his 54 points on Saturday. – Photo by Jenni Pickel

Of course Jacob Ognacevic was on a basketball court when he found out he set another school record.

The Sheboygan Lutheran senior was in the gym shooting with two teammates Sunday night when Crusaders’ coach Nick Verhagen texted him that he set the mark for most points in a season the day before.

“I kind of had an idea that I was close, but I didn’t really know the exact numbers,” said Ognacevic, who became the first Crusader to reach 1,000 total rebounds earlier this year. “It’s playoffs and we’re just really focused on winning. I wasn’t really looking at all the numbers, so I didn’t really know I was that close.

“I felt like I had a really good game and my teammates were giving me the ball. I was getting a lot of offensive rebounds and we kind of wore them down, picked apart their defense. Yeah, it was definitely cool to score all those points.”

Ognacevic scored a career-high 54 – the school record is 58 by Sam Dekker 2012 – in a 91-64 victory Saturday over Hilbert in a Division 5 regional championship game to give him a total of 992 points this season and break the previous record of 942 also set by Dekker in ’12.

“It hasn’t really sunk in,” said Ognacevic, who is averaging 40 points. “But right now I’m just focused on our playoff games coming up, so I can’t really look at that right now. I’ve got a lot bigger things to worry about. But yeah, that’s something I can definitely look back on when I’m older and be proud of that.”

On Thursday, the top-seeded Crusaders take on third-seeded Hustisford at 7 p.m. in a sectional semifinal.

The winner of that game advances to a sectional final Saturday at Fond du Lac against either Randolph or Monticello.