The School of the Ozarks boys are heading to their first-ever Class 1 state quarterfinal game with a 72-52 victory over Eminence on Tuesday at Cabool High School.
From the tip off until the final buzzer, the Patriots had their heads in the game.
In the first eight minutes, the Patriots had a 20-point lead on Eminence (28-8).
School of the Ozarks head coach Jerry Martin said, “We’ve been playing such good defense, and every step you go the offence is better and better and better. That was my biggest concern. Will we continue to guard the way we’ve been guarding? And we did a really good job of that. The intensity was really high. It’s good to have seniors that lead you on the floor with that, because they understand the key to winning is taking people out of their offense and that gives you a chance. We’re not always going to shoot as well as we did. Making shots at the beginning was huge, but when you’re playing great defense that still gives you a chance on those nights that you’re not shooting as well as we did tonight. I’m very pleased with the defense at the beginning.”
With their strong defense and a night filled with shots, the 20-point lead in the beginning virtually stuck.
The Patriots were ahead 45-20 at the half and 61-40 after the third quarter to eventually win the whole ballgame with 20 points, 72-52.
Senior Keaton Tillack scored a game-high 25 points for the School of the Ozarks.
“I want to say how well coached that group is – and disciplined. I think they’ve got a shot to maybe win it all,” Eminence head coach Pete McBride said of the Patriots.
He added, “We knew going in that they were a good team. They’re experienced. They were in this game last year. And we’re a young team. So we knew we what we were up against and we needed them to come out and not shoot it real well early and build some confidence on our end. And they came out shooting the ball well and I think we showed our youth and some nerves. We kind of got off on the wrong foot. They’re too good to get off to a bad start.”
Despite the loss, Eminence attempted a comeback in the third quarter in which five Redwings combined for a total of 20 points.
Of those points, Trent McBride had 11. Throughout the night, Trent went 7-for-7 from the free-throw line and scored a total of 22 points for Eminence – the only Redwing to score in double digits.
Eminence won its district title four out of the last five years, and won the state tournament in 2013. So while the loss was tough on the Redwings, coach McBride is looking forward to next season.
“We’ll get a lot of guys back. They got a lot of good experience this year. Our future looks good for us,” McBride said.
He added, “With such a young group, there have been a lot of hills and valleys, but we stayed the course and won our district when we weren’t supposed to. So I think this team got a little bit ahead of the game, per-se.”
The Patriots are set to play a quarterfinal game against Gideon (25-4) 2:45 p.m. Saturday at Van Buren High School.
While research will be conducted on the opponent, Martin also has another mindset going into the next round.
“I’m a John Wooden guy myself,” Martin said. “And his emphasis was always more on his team. It’s really more about us than it is the opponent, so if we do what we do well, we’ll see what happens.”
BOX SCORE
School of the Ozarks: Keaton Tillack 25, Billy Evans 14, Cade Martin 13, Zach Martin 8, Coby Dolloff 7, Jonny Widner 3, Nate Brown 2
Eminence: Trent McBride 22, Kyndal Copeland 9, Grant Dyer 6, Briar Dodson 5, Ethan Drake 4, Denton White 2, Parker Matteson 2, T.J. Rolen 2
| 1Q | 2Q | 3Q | 4Q | F | |
| School of the Ozarks | 28 | 17 | 13 | 14 | 52 |
| Eminence | 8 | 12 | 20 | 12 | 52 |
