By Denise Tucker (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
NIXA – The Willow Springs Bears followed up their one-sided district championship victory with another lopsided win – this time in the Class 4 sectional – a 66-42 victory over Lamar on Tuesday night at Nixa High School.
On Friday night, Willow Springs rolled to a 74-41 Class 4 District 11 victory over Hollister.
“This time of year, that doesn’t happen very often,” said veteran coach Mike Wilson, who has more than 500 career wins and is in his fourth year at Willow Springs. “I’ve been doing this long enough and it doesn’t happen very often, but you take them by one or by 100, if you can get them.”
The Bears, who improved to 22-5, pounced on the Tigers early and often by opening the game on an 11-0 run, allowing only four first-quarter points for a 21-4 advantage. The Tigers played the Bears even over the second and third quarters (26-26), but the damage was done as the Bears’ 3-2 zone caused problems for Lamar all night.
“We went to that about five or six games in this year, and I’m a man-to-man guy,” Wilson said. “All my friends who coach are giving me so much crap because I’m a hard-nosed man guy. But the zone fits the kids I’ve got really, really well.
“Scottie (Osborn) does such a good job up there on top that allows my guards to spread out more and take passes. It’s worked really well and it’s gotten better as the year’s gone on. The last month, people have had a hard, hard time getting a good shot.”
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Osborn, who has started since his freshman year, led the Bears with 19 points, five rebounds and four assists. He was joined in double figures by Owen Duddridge (17) and younger brother Scooter Osborn (11).
“You look at him, and people think ‘Ah…’ but Scottie has great hands, great feet and he has a big motor,” Wilson said. “I mean, it runs hard all the time, and he’s so strong, he’s so athletic. People don’t think he’s very athletic; he’s got the shaggy hair… but he’s really, really athletic. Our defense is from him. If he wasn’t as good as he was up there, we would have to do something different.”
Osborn agrees with his coach and takes pride in his defense.
“Yeah, I really do,” Osborn said. “I think I’m better at defense than offense. I like getting rebounds, so I think that’s pretty good.
“Our defense is what makes us better. Our three zone’s pretty good, so I think we get good looks after three zones. Defense wins games, that’s what Coach has always told me, so I think that I should keep that going for him.”
The Bears were finding each other all night, playing unselfish and working for the better shot.
“They like each other, and we preach that; I’ve always preached that with all my teams,” Wilson said. “You’re only as good as your whole team. This game, there’s five on the floor. You’re not winning one by yourself. They’ve bought in and they don’t care who scores, they don’t care who gets whatever, they just want to win and so that’s the big thing.”
Not only was Lamar slow getting started Tuesday night, the Tigers were slow getting their season started this year. Several members of the basketball squad are also members of Lamar’s state-power football team. And this past season, the Tigers finished 13-1, falling in the Class 2 state championship game, which was played on Dec. 3, 2021 – well after basketball season has started.
“I’m so proud of them,” Lamar coach Matt Powell said. “Our goal was to win districts and we would love to keep going, but we’re not the fastest starters. We’ve got a lot of guys that play football, and we get most of them back that first week of December, and that first semester and even the whole month of January is really hard.
“We really started playing well about three weeks ago, and we played well tonight, outside of the first half. I was really pleased in the second half that we played and didn’t give up. So, I’m just extremely proud of our kids.”
The Bears next will face Father Tolton Regional Catholic on Saturday at Lebanon High School.
“It’s awesome,” Osborn said of making it to the quarterfinal round. “I’m going to look back in 20 years and I’m going to be saying, ‘Hey, I did that my senior year,’ because we haven’t done this since ’08, so I think it’s pretty cool.”
WILLOW SPRINGS 66, LAMAR 42
Class 4 sectional game
LAMAR 4-11-15-12—42
WILLOW SPRINGS 21-16-10-19—66
LAMAR (17-12) – Joel Beshore 5, Riley Heckadon 1, Mason Gastel 13, Conner Shoff 12, Gunnar Dillon 4, Ian Ngugi 2, Trace Willhite 2, Ethan Reed 3.
WILLOW SPRINGS (22-5) – Owen Duddridge 17, Scottie Osborn 19, Gannon McGinnis 2, Gabe Colvin 9, Scooter Osborn 11, Ryan Koehler 6. Garit Spence 2.
Up next: Class 4 quarterfinals – Willow Springs vs. Father Tolton Regional Catholic, 2:45 p.m. Saturday at Lebanon High School
