It will be an all-Big Eight Conference final in Stockton on Saturday as the Lamar Tigers and the East Newton Patriots survived tough challenges in the Class 3 District 12 semifinals. The Tigers and the Patriots will battle at 7:30 following the girls’ championship game between East Newton and El Dorado Springs at 6 PM.
Lamar downs Butler in battle of big men
The opener was a battle of the bigs as Butler’s 6-foot-7 Zach Burch matched up against Lamar’s 6-4 Sam Timmons. Burch had the upper hand there, finishing with 25 points including a couple of powerful dunks. But Timmons, who scored 16, had the better supporting cast around him, in particular Ian Moore. The 5-10 sophomore canned four 3-pointers on the night, the last giving the Tigers a 53-51 lead with 4:15 remaining.
After Moore’s fourth trey (which gave him 14 on the night) the Tigers and the Bears were each shut out for nearly four minutes as the defenses stiffened down the stretch. With 45 seconds left, Burch intercepted a Lamar lead pass as the Tigers were attempting a fast break, only to be tied up a few ticks later with Lamar holding the possession arrow. At 19.5, Burch hit one of two free throws to pull the Bears within one at 53-52, but Butler fouled Lamar’s Nicholas Ray twice and he responded with four free throws for the final margin of victory.
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“Our defensive focus was on Burch,” said Lamar coach Joel Braden. “He’s a monster in there, he’s a strong kid that can score. We knew going in we weren’t going to stop him and be the team that holds him under 10 points. It’s making him work for everything we’ve got and then making sure the other kids on the team just don’t have a huge night. We did a pretty good job of that. Our focus was then that anytime he was in the lane that we had two or three guys were around him and then when the pass went out, we had to have guys close out and guard out there. We did a good job on that too."
“We did a good job in the last two minutes of controlling the game and making them come to us. We handled the ball, we made them foul us. We missed the first free throw but after that we made them. You have to finish games, and we did a pretty good job of that.”
Butler coach Kevin Hill said, “We turned the ball over a few too many times [14 unofficially], and they really hurt us on the offensive glass. They made big plays down the stretch and we weren’t able to.”
Butler (16-11) 8 16 19 9—52
Lamar (20-6) 15 12 18 12—57
Butler: Zach Burch 25, Tate Bollweg 11, Payten Shearer 6, Kaleb Kauffman 6, Zeph Smith 4
Lamar: Sam Timmons 16, Ian Moore 14, Luke Hardman 10, Nicholas Ray 9, Trey Mooney 6, Matt Whyman 2.
Strong fourth quarter pushes East Newton past Stockton
For awhile in the nightcap, it looked like a big man was going to be the story as well; in this case Stockton’s 6-3 senior Grant Kenney. The son of Tiger coach Mike Kenney scored 11 of his team-high 16 points in the first quarter as Stockton clung to a 14-12 lead.
Both teams went ice cold in the second period, registering just five points apiece to keep it a two-point contest at the intermission. Key outside shooting by Colton Brown and Eli Hubbard helped extend the Tiger advantage to four points at the three-quarter mark, but the Patriots speed and determination took over from there.
Led by the combination of seniors Ethan Heilig and Tyler Winsauer, East Newton challenged every loose ball and fast broke off several missed Tiger shots. Stockton fouls started piling up for Kenney, Brown, and Alex Wheeler, forcing the Tigers to back off a little on defense as the Patriots canned 16 of 24 free throws.
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Heilig led the Patriots with 15 points and Winsauer was right behind with 14.
Patriots coach Kyle Fields said, “Our kids showed a tremendous amount of resiliency throughout the game because we had some shots that weren’t falling. We kind of kept plugging along and had some free throws and some cribs fall for us and things started going our way. I thought we had some good defensive pressure especially. They [Stockton] did a good job of taking advantage of some bad situations early, but we were fortunate enough to come away with the victory in trying to get to the district championship. Lamar is real tough, and we’re going to have to play good to have a chance.”
“They’re quick,” Mike Kenney said of East Newton’s defense. “They’re athletic, they have quick hands, and they gave us fits all night.
“I thought our defense did a great job of keeping us in it. We didn’t turn it over, we took pretty good shots but they contested everything. And that frustrated us a little bit in the late third quarter, early fourth. I thought we had a chance to push our four-point lead to six or eight or even ten there. But we didn’t; we missed some free throws there, we missed some attack-the-rim shots, and they got runouts there. Then you saw our fouls build up and we wanted to get into our press a little but we couldn’t because of a couple of those fouls.
“But the swinging point was East Newton’s defense. They dictated it all night long.”
East Newton (17-10) 12 5 15 20—52
Stockton (18-8) 14 5 17 8—44
East Newton: Ethan Heilig 15, Tyler Winsauer 14, Josh Harris 9, Dalton Zimmerman 4, Caleb Jackson 3, Dustin McDermott 3, Jake Patterson 2, Coleman Booker 2.
Stockton: Grant Kenney 16, Colton Brown 12, Alex Wheeler 8, Eli Hubbard 8.
