Sutherland’s 31 points propel Logan-Rogersville to district title

michael-cignoli-districts-50-2

By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)

HOLLISTER — As if his play on the court didn’t make it obvious enough, Curry Sutherland left no doubt about it during his postgame interview.

“I only had a district championship as a sophomore, so I really wanted to get another one this year to go out,” the Logan-Rogersville senior said.

Sutherland led all scorers with 31 points, propelling the top-seeded Wildcats to a 53-40 victory over Hollister in the Class 4 District 11 championship game on Friday night at Hollister High School.

The Wildcats (25-3) rode Sutherland’s dominant performance to their fifth district title in the past six seasons and will face District 12 champion Seneca (17-11) in the sectional round. Tip off is set for 7:45 p.m. Monday at Southwest Baptist University.

It’ll be the second trip to the state tournament for Sutherland, who didn’t play on the team during his freshman campaign.

But he’s grown into the focal point of the Logan-Rogersville offense – and Friday’s game was no exception. The 6-foot-5 standout was dominant in the paint and was a major reason that the Wildcats won by 13 points despite making just one 3-pointer the entire evening.

Keegun Daniels was another, as the 6-foot-3 senior scored eight of his 13 points in the fourth quarter — the majority of them in the paint — as the Wildcats pulled away late.

“We ran our offense through Curry,” Wildcats coach John Schaefer said. “We always have. We want to utilize our size. Keegun Daniels came up and helped us. They were (double-teaming) Curry everywhere, so we gave the ball to Keegun and got him some easy baskets – or tough looks, but one-on-one. That was a huge difference maker, as well.”

Daniels’ late scoring surge helped the Wildcats survive a 26-point outing from senior Garrett Snyder, Hollister’s all-time leading scorer.

Snyder and Sutherland went toe-to-toe through the first three quarters — Sutherland had 22 points, Snyder had 21 — as the Wildcats held a five-point lead entering the final period.

But Daniels scored Logan-Rogersville’s first eight points of the fourth quarter, giving the Wildcats a commanding 40-31 lead with 5:13 remaining.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME

“He couldn’t miss there for a second,” Sutherland said. “It really helped propel us to the win.”

Hollister cut the deficit to 44-40 with 1:28 to play after officials corrected an apparent discrepancy between the scorebook and scoreboard, which at the time showed the Wildcats leading 46-40.

“The book was right,” Hollister coach Pete Leonard said. “The clock was wrong.”

What could have been a huge momentum swing wound up being a non-issue, as the Tigers didn’t make another shot the rest of the game. Sutherland made seven free throws down the stretch as the Wildcats finished the game with their largest advantage of the night.

“I don’t really know the whole details,” Schaefer said. “They think they had a miscue in the book early and said they gave us too many points – which I would have noticed – but I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s over and who cares?”

It was a nearly-identical result to the regular-season meeting between the Big 8 East rivals, a 54-41 Logan-Rogersville victory at Hollister exactly one month prior to the playoff game.

“We knew exactly what it was going to be like here tonight,” Schaefer said. “The first time we played them, (Snyder) didn’t score a field goal in their home floor – and he had eight points. We knew that wasn’t going to happen again. We tried to attack it the same way. We wanted to put the ball in the hands of our best player and so did they. It just kind of worked out where we could cover him a little bit better than probably what they could cover in the post, due to some size.”

The Wildcats opened the game on a 9-0 run, but Snyder helped Hollister chip away at the deficit. The Tigers cut it to 18-17 in the second quarter and 28-27 in the third, but Logan-Rogersville responded with a run of its own each time — and never trailed.

“I’m super proud of them,” Leonard said of the Tigers. “They fought and clawed every game. We ended the season 22-5. You don’t have a lot of negative takeaways from a season like that.”

The Wildcats won their 11th consecutive game and have not allowed more than 51 points in any of those contests. That’s a bit of a magic number for the defensive-minded Wildcats, who are 3-2 when surrendering more than that amount.

In all other games, they’re 22-1.

“If we don’t have our defense going for us, then we’re going to struggle,” Sutherland said. “Tonight, we had it on both ends pretty good. It was a pretty good game.”

The Wildcats are hoping to continue the momentum into the state sectionals – and beyond.

With two more wins, they’ll be the first Logan-Rogersville basketball team to reach a Final Four since 2019, when the school’s boys and girls teams both did it.

With four more wins, they would claim the school’s first state title in the sport since 1982.

A deep playoff run would create a tight turnaround for Sutherland and teammates Brody McNiel and Ross Lawrence, who have all committed to Missouri State for baseball.

The Wildcats are set to open their baseball season at 11 a.m. on March 18.

The Class 4 state basketball championship game is set for 2 p.m. on March 17.

“I want to keep going really bad,” Sutherland said. “Baseball will come when it comes. Right now, I’m trying to do something special on the basketball court.”

Related Posts

Loading...