By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Any hopes of a Southwest comeback were almost single handedly escorted from the gym by Sparta junior Jacob Lafferty in the third quarter Monday night.
Lafferty scored 19 of his team’s 20 points in the period and Sparta added to a 12-point halftime lead en route to a 74-52 win over Southwest (Washburn) in a Class 3 sectional at Carthage.
Sparta coach Deric Link was hoping for an anticlimactic finish.
“That’s what we hoped it would be,” he said. “I thought our kids played really well and attacked the rim really well and made our layups.”
The Trojans, now 24-5, advance to face 24-4 Thayer in the quarterfinals Friday at Warrensburg.
Sparta built a 21-15 lead in the first quarter on Monday with Lafferty scoring 11 and senior Dexter Loveland scoring eight in the first period.
Then senior Kavan Walker got hot in the second – he connected on five 3-pointers and scored 17 points in the quarter. His offensive rebound and basket with a second left in the half sent the teams to the locker rooms with Sparta leading 41-29.
Southwest tried to change things up in the third quarter and held Sparta scoreless for nearly two minutes. But those other Trojans couldn’t score, either, and then Lafferty got rolling.
He scored the first 15 points for Sparta and had a dunk and two offensive rebounds, while Southwest was held scoreless for three-and-a-half minutes.
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“We really needed to strike earlier to cut that deficit down,” Southwest coach Rusty Roe said. “They extended the lead out, Lafferty – what a great athlete and player – did his thing and it really was hard for us to mentally bounce back from that.”
When the quarter was done, Sparta led 61-40.
The Trojans hiked the lead to 25 on a 3-pointer by senior Steven Brown, and to 27 on a basket from senior Dexter Loveland. Lafferty later made another dunk to get it back to 25.
He finished with a game-high 35 points despite scoring just one in the second and four in the fourth.
“He’s been on a tear lately,” Link said. “He’s been focused and he’s a fun kid to be around and coach. Yeah, he took over a little bit. We were in a position where they had to get out a little more on us and that opened up some driving lanes for him and he took advantage of it.”
Walker added 17 for Sparta, Loveland scored 16 and junior Walker Loveland had three.
“Obviously we didn’t have a very good game plan defensively,” Roe said. “I thought we did but the coach didn’t do a very good job coming up with a good game plan for that. If you’re going to give up 41 points in the first half, you’ll have a hard time sticking around, that’s for sure.”
Southwest finished with a 21-8 record and won the school’s first district championship in 57 years last weekend.
“I told them when you tell your grandkids one day you’ll just stop the story at Stockton and your district championship there,” Roe said. “It’s been a great ride for these guys and I couldn’t be prouder to get to coach them. Tonight they tried, we just didn’t have a very good game plan.”
Southwest got 12 points each from senior Lucas Paulsen and senior Brandon Brooks. Senior Zak Corwin added 10, sophomore Jesse Holder had nine, junior Brendyn Paulsen scored seven and junior Kenneth Pippin had two.
“We got over the emotional high of winning the district, which was phenomenal, but we want to make sure we’re still looking to move forward,” Link said. “I thought we did a good job handling some adversity, handling them making some shots early and their crowd getting into it.
“We’re one away from our goal, from what we’ve been working for since day one,” he said. “What they’ve been talking about since last year. We’re one game away and whoever we play is going to be a good team and we’ve got another chance to practice. Just blessed.”
