By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
With five minutes to go and Crane leading by eight points, Nixa coach Jay Osborne admitted he was nervous.
“I’d be lying if I said no,” he said. “Yeah, it was a stressful time.”
But Osborne never thought his Eagles would lose, and second-seeded Nixa mounted a furious comeback in the final minutes to clip seventh seed Crane 46-45 on Friday in the second round of the 74th Annual Blue & Gold Tournament at JQH Arena in Springfield.
Nixa advances to face sixth seed Rogersville at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the Blue Division semifinals.
“They had a couple shots that bounced around the rim, fell in, one banked in, but I’ve got to give them credit, I thought they played harder than us, I thought they were tougher than us,” said Osborne. “But you know, we’ve got a good team and I always thought good teams find a way to win those games when you don’t play your best. The reason we didn’t play our best was because of Crane.”
Crane led by five points when Nixa junior Kaleb Wofford made a three pointer with 1:41 left in the game to make it 43-41. Crane junior Isaiah Smith made a free throw with 1:23 remaining, but Nixa senior Jason Jones made two free throws at the 1:19 mark to make it a 1-point game.
With 50 seconds left to play, Wofford made another three pointer to give the Eagles a 46-44 lead. Crane senior Tyler Campbell made a free throw with 41 seconds remaining, then the Pirates nearly forced a 10-second violation, causing Osborne to call timeout.
But again the Eagles struggled to cross half court, and this time Nixa was whistled for 10 seconds and turned the ball over with 22 seconds on the clock.
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Campbell put up a shot from the three-point line for the win as time expired but missed.
It was the first loss of the season for the Pirates, who fell to 9-1.
“There was a reason they were undefeated going into that game,” Osborne said. “We’re going to look back on this one of these days and feel really good about the win. I’m just going to totally focus on tomorrow’s opponent and see if we can’t have a better performance.”
Nixa was in control throughout the first half but never could quite shake Crane. The Eagles led 17-9 after a quarter thanks to a three-pointer by sophomore Colin Ruffin in the final minute. The Pirates got within 18-16 on a basket by senior Jacob Woodward, but Ruffin answered with another three pointer and Jones scored four points in the final minute to give Nixa a 25-16 halftime lead.
It was a different game in the third quarter.
Crane opened on a 9-0 run with baskets by senior Wes Branstetter, Woodward and Campbell. Woodward banked in a three-pointer to make it a four-point game, and Campbell was fouled while making a three pointer; his four-point play tied the game at 25.
Nixa retook the lead with two Jones free throws, but Crane tied it at 27 and then pulled ahead on a three-point play by Campbell.
The Pirates led 34-31 after three quarters.
“We tried to make some adjustments at halftime at how we were guarding and our offensive sets, how we wanted to get into some things,” Crane coach Kevin Smith said. “I thought we shored a couple of those things up, took away some of their shooters and helped us go on a 9-0 run. I thought we did a lot of good things the second half, it just kind of fell apart at the very end.”
Smith had some huge baskets for the Pirates down the stretch. He scored with 15 seconds left in the third quarter, then opened the fourth with a driving layup to give his team a five-point lead.
He converted a three-point play with 6:49 remaining to make it 39-33, and when he scored on another layup with 5:10 on the clock Crane led 41-33.
He scored again with 3:38 left to keep the Pirates up by five, but that was Crane’s final field goal of the game.
“They had a better attitude and they had some swagger to them that we didn’t,” Osborne said. “We were soft, we played soft, we rebounded soft in that third quarter and we acted like we were going through the motions like just because we’re Nixa and we take the floor people are going to lay down and that doesn’t happen. Our kids have to understand we’ve got to be mentally tougher and physically tougher. We weren’t in that third quarter but I’ll give our kids credit, I don’t think they ever doubted we were going to win the game. Our coaches didn’t, I didn’t but it didn’t look good for awhile but we found a way to win.”
Jones led Nixa with 16 points, Ruffin added nine and senior Josh Mason and Wofford each scored eight.
Crane was led by 16 points from Smith and 13 from Campbell. Woodward added five. Junior Brecken Vaught scored three after missing Thursday’s opener with the flu. Woodward also played despite a recent illness.
