By Scott Vanscoy (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
It was Senior Night at Billings High School and also a night to honor retiring Coach Kendall Tilley after 24 years at the helm of the Wildcat program. The Blue Eye Bulldogs, however, were ready to ignore the hoopla and get down to business. It had been since 2009 that Blue Eye had gone undefeated in the SWCL Conference and they were determined to see their conference record go to 7-0. Billings, however, came to play and the Bulldogs found themselves in a battle early but would win the game 75-50.
Billings led by two after the first quarter, 18-16. They hit some big shots and forced Blue Eye into turning the ball over. This continued in the second quarter as the bigger Bulldogs were outrebounded by the smaller Wildcats. The Wildcats went into the locker room at half time up by one, 34-33. Blue Eye coach Kyle Turner was not happy with his team’s performance and at half time he was not shy about sharing his thoughts with his team.
Blue Eye senior Lance Clark, who had 24 points on the night, talked about regrouping after half time.
“Tonight was a closer game than we thought it might be,” said Clark. “We struggled tonight but down the stretch we finally got the flow of things. We figured out our defense and we capitalized on that. Coach did get a little angry with us at half time but we weren’t’ being aggressive. The second half, though, we came out more aggressive, blocking out the little guys and our size made the difference. We aren’t used to having so many turnovers, we didn’t come out as focused as we should and there aren’t really any excuses for that.”
Billings saw their lead expand to seven in the third quarter before Blue Eye took control. The Wildcats had their post players get into foul trouble and the Bulldogs’ bigs took over. Billings trailed Blue Eye by six at the end of the third, 54-48.
Blue Eye senior Isaiah Mitchell took over in the fourth quarter, scoring 10 of his game-high 27 points.
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“We didn’t come out that strong and they came out hard, it was Senior Night,” said Mitchell. “We rallied together at half and came back and were able to come together as a team. At half time in the locker room Coach was not very happy; he let us have it and we went over what we needed to do better. We came out and executed. I’m just doing my part on the team, doing what Coach asked me to do. He wanted me to get inside and be strong so that’s what I did.”
The Blue Eye defense held the Wildcats to just two points in the fourth quarter. The Bulldogs forced the Wildcats into several turnovers and shots that fell for them early in the game didn’t fall for them in the fourth.
“As far as the game goes, I was glad the way our kids came out and played,” said Tilley. “They responded early and played with them and made them get out of their press a little bit. They took the press off and we were up 7; that was smart to take it off and let us try to play half-court offense for a little bit. We struggled with that. We went after it early and we hit a lot of shots the first half, which really helped. We have Fordland in the first round of Districts and if we win that one then we’ll get Blue Eye again. It’s good that our kids know that we can at least play with them; we’ll see. I was proud of the way we played early, but we always have a bad half or a bad quarter. It caught up to us with foul trouble with our two bigs; once our two bigs got into trouble against Mitchell and their other kid it was hard to make any ground back.”
Blue Eye’s coach Turner went into the night expecting Billings to give them a tight contest. He knew that the Billings team would be extra motivated on the night of Coach Tilley’s last home game.
“I thought Billings did a good job of coming out, they played with a lot of emotion on Coach Tilley’s last home game,” said Turner. “Conference games are always tough. Coach Tilley is a really good coach and they were very prepared. They did a good job of taking us out of some of the things we wanted to do. They handled the press really well, that had been good for us and tonight it wasn’t so good. We got out of it because we weren’t rotating. We did a better job of just getting back. Billings rebounds really well and they capitalized on that. We didn’t do a good job in rebounding, we turned it over too much, but in the second half we calmed down and played our game.”
Turner was impressed with his team going undefeated in the SWCL Conference, something they had not done since 2009.
“It’s huge that we went undefeated in the conference,” said Turner. “This is a really tough conference with a lot of really great coaches. Going into districts we just want to keep playing as long as we can. We are going to have to possibly meet this Billings team or a Fordland team who has been through the gauntlet in their conference. We are going to have to play well if we want to advance.”
Billings had prepared a special recognition for Tilley in honor of his many years with the District and the basketball program. Several former players returned to give their congratulations to their coach.
“It was cool seeing some of my former players, it was really good seeing some of those kids,” said Tilley. “I’ve been here at Billings for 24 years, 28 overall. It’s time; it’s time to go watch somebody else coach these kids and have them listen to a new voice.”
Blue Eye—Isaiah Mitchell-27, Lance Clark-24, Logan Isbell-9, Ryan Cardenzana-9, Lucas Estes-2, Braden Johnson-2, Aiden Estes-2
Billings—Luke Vesci-18, Zach Box-9, Cale Plowman-9, Jason Sekscinski-8, Grant Heimer-3, Carson Duvall-3
Blue Eye 16 17 21 21 75
Billings 18 16 14 2 50
