By Pat Dailey (For OzarkSportsZone.com)
Noah Engelman and his Nixa coaches and teammates credited Ozark for providing the Eagles an assist that paid winning dividends Friday.
A couple nights after being beaten on the boards by Ozark, Nixa bounced back with one of its best rebounding efforts on the season in a 68-46 Class 6 District 5 semifinal win versus Joplin.
Engelman had a combination of offensive and defensive boards that added up to a 15-rebound night.
“(Ozark forward) Jace Whatley is a great rebounder and you could say he kind of got me ready for this game,” Engelman said. “Ozark woke me up. Joplin obviously has two huge guys in (forward) Whit Hafer and (center) Terrance Gibson. Coach (Brock) Blansit emphasized rebounding to us. He said if we win the rebounding (battle), there would be a good chance we would win. I focused on keeping Hafer and Gibson off the glass.”
“Rebounding has been something we’ve struggled with all year and something we really concentrated on in the last 24 hours,” Blansit said. “We knew we were going to win or lose rebounding the basketball.”
Josh Peters backed up Engelman with 10 rebounds. Nixa’s guards also rebounded well.
Nixa’s rebounding set up putbacks and at the other end of the court kept Joplin’s second-chance opportunities at a minimum.
“Coach told us at the beginning of the game rebounding would win or lose the game for us,” Peters said. “We wanted to make sure we came out and dominated that aspect.”
“We can control our defense and rebounding, that’s what we took care of tonight,” Blansit said. “Overall as a team, defensively and rebounding the ball, that’s as good as we’ve probably played. Noah was unbelievable.”
It was quite a contrast for Nixa from its 57-55 first-round win versus Ozark. The Tigers collected 14 offensive rebounds.
“It’s nice to get a little kicker without taking a loss. It was a wakeup call,” Blansit said.
Nixa (28-0) burned Joplin for nine 3-pointers, while shooting 33 percent from 3-point land. It was a bit of a subpar showing offensively for Blansit’s bunch.
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“Some nights shots don’t go in and sometimes they do,” Blansit said. “You can’t really control that. But as long as you are taking good shots, I can live with that. If you’re open, that’s fine.”
Kael Combs had a trio of treys in his 19-point night. Corey Kemp added to his post-season heroics with 16 points and Peters and Devon Kemp both added nine.
Nixa led throughout and gradually pulled away beginning in the second quarter, surging to a 33-24 halftime lead.
Joplin (17-10) tried to rally, cutting a 17-point Nixa lead to 10, 45-35, but would get no closer.
Joplin coach Bronson Schaake lamented missed opportunities for his team in the first half.
“We missed a lot of easy stuff around the rim and layups in transition,” Schaake said. “We needed to capitalize when we had our chances and that’s what we didn’t do. We’ve got to finish around the rim a lot better.”
Joplin received 20 points from All Wright on 8-of-16 shooting from the field.
Nixa got a boost from its bench, with backups combining for 18 points. Blansit particularly appreciated the timing of a 3-pointer in the third quarter by Carsten Seitz that put Nixa up 49-35.
“We were struggling a bit and he hit a big 3 to kind of put us over the top,” Blansit said. “We got some big points off the bench.”
Nixa advances to play Kickapoo (20-8) in Monday’s title tilt. It will be the fifth straight season the team will have met in the post-season.
Nixa 68, Joplin 46
JOPLIN (46) — Wright 8 3-5 20, Renfro 4 0-0 9, Gibson 4 2-5 10, Hafer 3 0-2 7.
NIXA (68) — Peters 4 0-0 9, Engelman 3 0-0 6, C. Kemp 6 2-2 16, Combs 6 4-4 19, D. Kemp 2 3-4 9, Seitz 1 0-0 3, McCoy 0 2-2 2, Cantwell 2 0-0 4.
Joplin 13 11 11 11 – 46
Nixa 20 13 13 22 – 68
3-point goals – Combs 3, C. Kemp 2, D. Kemp 2, Peters, Seitz, Wright, Renfro, Hafer.
