Rogersville boys grind out district title win over Bolivar

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By Kary Booher (For OzarksSportsZone.com)

MARSHFIELD, Mo. – Talk about flirting with disaster. Or winning ugly. Or whatever fitting description you want to use.

Only one field goal went through the bucket in the second half for the Rogersville High School boys basketball team in their Class 4, District 9 championship game against the red-hot Bolivar Liberators.

And yet the Wildcats still won, as they eked out a 37-28 victory Saturday at Marshfield High School as Luke Vandersnick and Andrew Scott finished with 14 and 13 points, respectively.

How did they hold on? As Vandersnick explained it, call it offseason conditioning and a series grind-it-out games in the regular season that prepped the Wildcats for the moment.

“It shows how hard we’ve worked,” Vandersnick said of Rogersville’s first district title in nine years.

For Rogersville coach John Schaefer, whose team has averaged almost 60 points a game, he couldn’t help but sigh before saying, “That was unbelievable. They just did a good job of taking away our strengths.”

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME

Bolivar held a 2-7 record at one point this season, but entered Saturday’s match up having won 11 of its past 15 games.

The Liberators then pushed Rogersville almost to the wire, despite the Wildcats a 26-16 advantage with 3:48 left in the game).

But Rogersville held on on a day when McKinley Feith nursed foul trouble throughout and then lost guard Jackson VonBehren to a knee injury in the final 1:23.

Vandersnick scored the Wildcats’ only second-half bucket, at the 3:48 mark of the third quarter. It extended Rogersville’s lead to 26-16.

However, the key was the heart of the fourth quarter, when Rogersville held possession for a 2-minute, 36-second stretch – mostly playing keep-away. Bolivar’s Corey Spindler had hit two free throws to pull the Liberators to within 29-24 with 4:16 left.

But the Liberators didn’t get the ball again until the 1:40 mark and, after Ian Jones’ bucket made it a four-point game, Rogersville hit seven of nine free throws.

For Rogersville, it could hang its hat on building the 10-point cushion and coming up with 12 turnovers, which were huge in a low possession game.

When it built the 10-point advantage, it did so by scoring on five consecutive possessions at the end of the first half. VonBehren and Scott hit 3-pointers, and Cade Blevins converted a three-point play on a fastbreak in that stretch before Vandersnick’s jumper sent the game to halftime.

“We didn’t make as many shots as we normally do,” Scott said. “But when we shot it, we made sure we didn’t miss it.”

Looking back, what affected Bolivar were its 12 turnovers, limiting its ability to cut deeper into the deficit or find momentum.

“I thought we did a great job in that third quarter of getting stops,” Bolivar coach Robby Hough said. “We turned it over too many times, but those guys were just trying to make plays. (The Wildcats) play with a methodical pace, and it’s hard to get you into your rhythm. That’s to their credit.”

Bolivar, which finished 16-12, saw Jones finish with 10 points, while Spindler had eight. Kyler Murphy (5), Jamison Jones (5) and Levin Manning (2) also contributed.

Hough expressed appreciation that his players were teary-eyed afterward.

“That’s the kind of second semester these guys have have had, and it shows their character,” Hough said.

Blevins (4) and VonBehren (3) and Hunner Johnson (3) also contributed for Rogersville, whose season goes on. The Wildcats play in a sectional on Tuesday at Nixa High School.

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