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March 22, 2010
The 2nd weekend of basketball championships was really terrific. The new format established by MSHSAA-- all 12 semifinals on Thursday, the six 3rd place games on Friday and all six Championships on Saturday seemed to agree with most fans. No one missed the 9:00am starts and the 11:15pm endings -- wonder why ? Now for some thoughts and observations...
Class 3 Boys... Cardinal Ritter Prep, motivated by some post-game remarks after the semifinal win by a Hogan Prep Player, came out blazing! The Lions jumped ahead to a 30-10 first quarter lead. Ritter scored on break-outs, post-ups, 3's, you name it....it was all Ritter. The 23-7 Rams regained their composure and made a run in the 3rd quarter as their press bothered the LIons. Settling things down, Head Coach Marvin Neals reminded his players to "make the plays and hit the free throws". That's exactly what happened in the 4th quarter as Ritter 12 of 14 tosses from the charity stripe to ice up the 93-69 win. The #1 ranked Class 3 team, Cardinal Ritter, won their 6th state title. Coach Neals, who won his first title at Soldan in 1981, felt that this team was STATE championship material and pushed them hard all year. In fact, he pushed them to the STATE championship !
Class 3 Girls... As explosive as the Ritter Boys team is offensively, the Ritter (26-5)girls struggled offensively from the field in the title game against Mt Vernon as they dropped a 44-30 contest. The Mountaineers (30-3) jumped out to a quick 14-4 lead in the first quarter. Both teams defense stymied the opposing offense in the 2nd quarter as Ritter outscored Mt Vernon just 4-3 for the quarter. The Mt Vernon zone kept the Lions from getting into their offensive rhythm. Meanwhile the tenacious m/m defense of Cardinal Ritter was equally effective after those opening minutes. After the Mountaineers had a 9-1 "run" early in the 4th, Ritter outscored Mt Vernon 13-7 in the final 4 minutes of the game but couldn't climb to the to of this Mountain. Mt Vernon spread the court and ran an effective weave to free up many of their shooters. Kenzie Williams scored 14 points for the Mountaineers and often took charge on offense. Coach Darren Wade, who led the Lions to the Championship last year, had his team scrapping all 32 minutes but just couldn't find the bottom of the basket often enough in this game.
Class 2 Boys Championship was absolutely fabulous. It was a huge crowd, I think the largest of any one game over the two weekends. The crowd was energized from the opening tip as the Sturgeon Bulldogs were shooting for a perfect season against a highly skilled Bernie Mules team. Sturgeon (32-0) outlasted Bernie 82-80 in a game that was tied 16 different times, momentum shifts occurring each couple minutes, excitement continually. When Jacob Owens hit two consecutive 3-balls to give the Mules 73-67 lead with only 3:32 left a star stepped up. The star for the Bulldogs was Trey Chisholm, he scored 19 of the final 22 Bulldog points. Many coming off a new 1-4 iso set just installed this week for Chisholm. He sank the winning pair of free throws at the 02.8 second mark and finished with 35 points in the game. It was the first STATE title of any sport since 1982 for Stugeon High School. It was the type of game that you hated to see end because of its pace, energy, skill, coaching adjustments...really great !!
Class 2 Girls saw another perfect record get entered into the books. Harrisburg Bulldogs (31-0) led from start to end as they knocked down the Thayer Bobcats (28-4) by a 52-40 score. The Bulldogs jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead and would not be denied despite great determination from the Bobcats. Leading the way was Ashley Fischer for the Bulldogs. Wait...you say that sounds familiar....well, depending on your age....you may remember Kyle Fischer who played on the Harrisburg team of four years ago (has played at Wm Jewell since that time)...or maybe you remember Ashley's parents--Hal and Gail who each played at Harrisburg in the '70's! Harrisburg built a 40-21 cushion close to the end of the 3rd quarter. Thayer struggled throughout the game with the height advantage enjoyed by the swift Bulldogs.
Class 1 Boys...some things just don't seem to change. Scott County Central (28-2) wrapped up another title. Averaging 94.5 ppg in the state tournament, the Braves coasted to a 96-47 victory over Pilot Grove (28-4). While the win or the score doesn't seem to raise many eyebrows..how about this. Otto Porter, Jr grabbed 35 rebounds in the game -- shattering the previous record of 25. Oh yeah....who held the previous record ? Otto Porter, Sr in a 1971 win over Glasgow! It's the state-setting 14th basketball championship for the school. First year coach, Kenyon Wright had the legendary Ronnie Cookson at his side as the assistant throughout this year. Otto Porter, Jr and Bobby Hatchett were an unbelievable 1-2 punch. Some observers thought that this team could play at any level...that'll lead to some great off- season discussions.
Class 1 Girls saw the third team of the day finish with an unblemished record. Montrose (31-0) beat the always tough Jefferson 45-37 to close out the two weekends of great basketball. Montrose used their blistering perimeter shooting to wrap up the title.
Next week -- hopefully, we'll have analyzed all our data on naming the Prepcasts Prime Time Basketball Players for 2009-10. Check it out...
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