MSHSAA District Girl's Basketball Tournament Articles
Class 3, District #8
District Tournament Round 1
Boonville/California | Blair Oaks/South Callaway | Hallsville/Southern Boone | North Callaway/Centralia
District Tournament Round 2
Blair Oaks/California| Hallsville/Centralia
District Tournament Championship
Blair Oaks/Centralia
She could have practiced her shot. Or joked with teammates. Or listened to music. Instead, before many Hallsville girls basketball home games this season, Indians’ star Samantha Mullings helped the custodians. Mullings lifted folding chairs off their rack and lined them up on both sides of the scorers’ table to create benches for Hallsville and its opponent that evening. That blue-collar work ethic was on display again during the fourth quarter of last night’s 48-43 victory over Southern Boone in the first round of the Class 3 District 8 Tournament. With less than three minutes to play and the Indians down 43-42, Asia Bartlett missed a 3-pointer, and the Eagles appeared to have the defensive rebound. Instead of running back to play defense, Mullings tracked down the errant shot, wrapped her hands around the ball and forced a jump ball. Hallsville gained possession, and on the ensuing inbounds play, Mullings received a pass from Katie Williamson underneath the basket and turned it into an easy bucket that gave the second-seeded Indians the lead for good. Mullings recorded a game-high 14 points, but it wasn’t until Hallsville Coach Brad Blakemore spurred her on that she took over the game. "We had to sub with about six minutes to go in the game, and I said, ‘If you want to extend your season you better stand up and answer the bell because it’s ringin’,’ " Blakemore said. Mullings responded by knocking down a 3-pointer with 4:29 to play that put the Indians ahead 40-39. It was the first time Hallsville (21-4) had led since midway through the third quarter, when the score was 27-26. Then came the jump ball and easy basket. She capped her night by scoring the game’s final two points when she made both ends of a 1-and-1 with 26.2 seconds to play.
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That pushed Hallsville’s lead to five points and all but guaranteed the Indians would advance to the semifinals. "She can do that all the time," Blakemore said. "Sometimes she forgets, or sometimes she’s just a little bit too unselfish. When you say selfish and unselfish, people mess that up a lot. Sometimes in a team sport, your best players need to be selfish in certain situations. They’re your best players." Mullings scored nine of Hallsville’s 17 points in the fourth quarter. Her contribution equaled the output of the entire Southern Boone team over the game’s final eight minutes. "It’s my senior year, and I had to do it for the girls," Mullings said. "We’ve worked our butts off in practice, and I think we deserved to win, so I had to go all out." Mullings got a big assist from junior center Shelby Grindstaff, who finished second on the team with 13 points. Grindstaff also made both ends of a one-and-one with less than a minute to play in the fourth quarter. Her free throws pushed Hallsville’s lead to 46-43 with 39 seconds to play. "I get to the line, I was like, ‘All right. This is my house. My rim, my house, I’m gonna make these. I shoot here every day. I’m gonna make it,’ " Grindstaff said. "I was so happy when I did." For Grindstaff it was a bit of a repeat performance. In the teams’ first meeting of the season, she made a pair of free throws in the fourth quarter that Blakemore considered to be part of the turning point in Hallsville’s 37-33 win at Ashland. Hallsville and seventh-seeded Southern Boone played three times this season with the Indians winning all three contests. However, the combined margin of victory in those games was 10 points. Just like in the previous meetings, the Eagles (12-14) couldn’t hold a fourth-quarter lead. Courtney Branch scored a team-high 13 points in the final game of her high school career and Tillie Bill added 12 points. But the Eagles’ last points came with 2:56 remaining in the game. |
One of the Centralia girls basketball team’s goals coming into this season was to win a district game. None of the players had ever experienced a postseason win before, but that changed last night when the sixth-seeded Panthers rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit to defeat third-seeded and fifth-ranked North Callaway 52-46 in the first round of the Class 3 District 8 Tournament. "Our kids are pretty scrappy kids," Centralia Coach Mike Hann said. "We think if we work hard, we can be competitive with anybody we step on the floor with. We have a lot of respect for North Callaway and the players that they have. We wanted to see if we were up to that challenge, and there in the fourth quarter, we had a lot of kids do a lot of things individually. You could pick out individual players and say, ‘This kid did this, and this kid did that.’ It was really a team effort for us tonight." Centralia (15-11) found itself trailing 24-16 at halftime after North Callaway forward Samantha Heck scored her team’s last six points heading into the locker room, including a layup at the buzzer. When the teams came out for the second half, Heck picked up right where she left off. Again, Heck scored six straight points for her team as the Thunderbirds (20-5) opened up a 32-19 lead with 2:14 remaining in the third quarter. Centralia didn’t give up, though, and went on a 14-2 run to finish the quarter thanks in large part to smothering full-court pressure. "They put on a full-court press, and we just lost our composure there for about a minute, and that made the difference in the game," North Callaway Coach Theresa Oberlag said. "Normally, it doesn’t" give us problems. "Their timing of putting the press on is what caught us off guard."
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The pressure was Hann’s main focus when he made his halftime adjustments. "We went in, and we said defensively, we’ve got to pick up the intensity. We pressed teams all year. It didn’t matter who they were, we always tried to press," Hann said. "We didn’t try that very often in the first half, but I told the girls, ‘Let’s get after it in the second half. Let’s put some pressure on them. Let’s get the ball and see what we can do against them.’"
On the defensive end, McCann drew the assignment of guarding Heck. Heck recorded a game high 23 points. "She had a pretty big chore on both ends of the floor," Hann said. "We tried to defend Sam Heck with her, and Sam did get her to foul out there later on. Felicia hit some big shots on the offensive end. I have said all year long and the last two years I have coached, she is the strongest kid I have ever coached." Centralia grabbed the lead with 41 seconds remaining when the Panthers’ lone senior, Erin VanMaanen, hit a 3-pointer to put them ahead 48-46. From there, Centralia, which was 14 for 19 from the free-throw line on the game, made four of their last six from the stripe to preserve the victory. "Our free-throw shooting has been a struggle all year long for us, but we have gotten a little bit better," Hann said. Centralia will play their second-round game at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow against Hallsville.
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The Centralia girls basketball team entered the Class 3 District 8 Tournament with the No. 6 seed and a record three games over .500. Now the Panthers are a win away from a district title. In defeating seventh-ranked Hallsville 44-37 in the semifinals last night and ninth-ranked North Callaway two nights earlier, Centralia has served a reminder that come district time a team’s play down the stretch is more important than its body of work. Centralia (16-11) won three of its last five regular-season games and defeated a strong Macon team on Feb. 12. The Panthers’ two losses came by a combined six points. "We have played really well about the last three weeks," Centralia Coach Mike Hann said. "When you have success against good teams, that tends to build. It’s real important to those kids. They think they got a chance when they step on the floor." The Panthers’ confidence dovetails nicely with its defensive intensity. After the game, Centralia’s Erin VanMaanen wore a team shirt with the message "Every Defensive Possession is WAR!" on the back. Against Hallsville (21-5) that was a fact, not a slogan. Centralia’s full-court pressure forced one turnover after another, and when the Indians broke the press, they struggled against the Panthers’ man-to-man defense. "It starts with how physical they are on defense," Hallsville Coach Brad Blakemore said. "They were all over us the whole night." Centralia’s defense was at its best midway through the fourth quarter, when it sparked a 9-0 run.
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After the press forced a turnover, Shelby Grindstaff - the lone Hallsville player taller than 5-foot-8 - picked up her third foul in 1:13 and took a seat with four fouls at 5:57. Thirty-two seconds later, VanMaanen sank a 3-pointer to put Centralia ahead for good 29-28. The Indians inbounded the ball but couldn’t break the press, and Jordan Meyers recorded a steal. That led to Kerry Hockman’s basket with 5:13 to play. Hallsville called a full timeout, but that didn’t solve the problem. Mallory Henry, who finished with a game-high 15 points, recorded a steal and was fouled five seconds after the timeout. She made both of her free throws. "We were confident in our press," Henry said. "We knew we’d be there. Our teammates are there to back us up." Added VanMaanen: "We trap in the right spots, make them hurry, make them speed the game up. Hallsville in particular doesn’t like to go fast." Jordyn Tolliver and Felicia McCann each added a free throw to give Centralia a 35-28 lead with 4:23 to play. Hallsville pulled within 36-35 when Grindstaff made 1 of 2 free throws with 56.3 seconds to play and started to foul. The strategy backfired: VanMaanen, Meyers and Henry combined to go 8 for 8 from the line in the game’s final 51.6 seconds. VanMaanen also provided a big lift for Centralia on the defensive end. Hallsville likes to get the ball to Samantha Mullings in late-game situations, but that proved difficult with VanMaanen shadowing her. "I just stayed with her, didn’t let her have the ball, always was in the passing lane, fought through screens," VanMaanen said. "Just the most important thing was shutting her down." |
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Blair Oaks 55, California 24: "Bethany has a mid-range jumper, and I told her before the game that’s what to look for," Blair Oaks Coach Leroy Bernskoetter said. "She also did a nice job attacking the basket." Linsay Henke finished with 14 points and Lauren Rackers added seven points for Blair Oaks (25-2). Rackers took an elbow to the face midway through the second quarter and had to leave the game for a couple possessions. She was one of several Falcons who needed treatment during, or after, the physical game. "I’ve never been called out onto the court that many times before," Bernskoetter said. "It got a little rough." Erin Wolfrum hit a pair of 3-pointers to lead fifth-seeded California (17-8) with six points. |
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The Centralia girls basketball team’s countdown to the Class 3 District 8 championship was nearly complete heading into last night’s title game against its third state-ranked foe. Three … The sixth-seeded Panthers opened the tournament Monday with an upset of third-seeded North Callaway. Two … Centralia knocked off second-seeded Hallsville on Wednesday. One … Houston - err, Centralia - we have a problem. Blair Oaks, the tournament’s No. 1 seed, showed little appreciation to the Panthers for knocking off its top tournament competition by putting an end to Centralia’s Cinderella run with a dominating 47-27 victory. Led by 6-foot-4 Arkansas State recruit Linsay Henke, the fourth-ranked Falcons never trailed in claiming their third consecutive district title. "We just got beat down low," Centralia junior Felicia McCann said. "Size was our problem." Henke’s height was clearly a huge hurdle for the Panthers (16-12). Besides the eight blocks and eight rebounds she collected, Henke scored a game-high 16 points and altered several Centralia shots. "Has Centralia played anybody that big?" Blair Oaks Coach Leroy Bernskoetter asked. "It makes a difference. How many shots did they miss because that one eye is looking for No. 50?" Concerned before the game with how his team would handle the Falcons’ full-court pressure, Centralia Coach Mike Hann said Blair Oaks’ half-court defense ended up giving his team more problems. The imposing presence of Henke in the paint allowed the Falcons to play aggressively on the perimeter.
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"Their half-court defense was really good," Hann said. "They really flustered us. You can take a lot of chances when you have 6-4 standing behind you." Centralia actually forced Blair Oaks (26-2) into more turnovers than it committed - 20 to 15 - but the Panthers struggled to get their shots to fall. Trailing 15-6 after one quarter, Centralia’s Jordan Meyers assisted on baskets by McCann and Jordyn Tolliver to trim the margin to five early in the second. Blair Oaks sandwiched six- and five-point scoring runs around three points by Erin VanMaanen, though, to take a 26-13 lead into halftime. The Falcons started the third quarter with two quick baskets by Henke and Bethany Walkenhorst but didn’t score another field goal the rest of the quarter to allow the Panthers an opportunity to rally. But Centralia made only 3 of 11 shots from the field in the quarter and committed five turnovers to trail 32-19 entering the fourth. "When it got down there to like a 13-point game … that scared me a little bit," Bernskoetter said. "If they hit a couple shots and it gets under 10, it could be a ballgame." Those shots never fell. After Centralia missed a couple of good scoring chances, Blair Oaks scored the first six points of the fourth quarter to build a 38-19 lead. Walkenhorst made 4 of 4 free throws down the stretch to finish with 13 points. McCann and Mallory Henry both scored six points to lead a junior-laden Centralia squad that will lose only VanMaanen to graduation. "We want to take the next step," Hann said. "Our goal this year was to win a district game, and we got two of those against two good opponents … but Blair Oaks is a very good basketball team. Whoever has them next is going to have their hands full." Blair Oaks will play the winner of District 7 in a 6 p.m. sectional Wednesday at Moberly Area Community College. |
