By Staff

Waynesville girls and boys upset their way to district titles

The Waynesville community will be in full celebration mode for a while – as it should be.

Both the girls’ and boys’ basketball teams upset Jefferson City to nab two Class 5 – District 10 titles Thursday night at Lebanon High School.

GIRLS – CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS

The Waynesville girls may have been determined to win the district title like they did in 2013, but as of less than 48 hours ago, something else worth fighting for came about.

Head coach Brittany Matlock gave birth to a baby girl the night before the title game and was unable to attend the memorable sporting event.

But the Lady Tigers made sure they’d win it all for their absent coach and newest, little fan.

Stepping in for the mother Thursday night was assistant coach Brock Tiefenbrunn, as well as boys head coach Chris Pilz.

For Tiefenbrunn, this was his first time ever taking the reins on coaching the varsity team.

“Everything happened really quickly,” said Tiefenbrunn. “I stayed up watching film last night until 1 a.m., so I knew I needed to do what I could to be ready to go. For them seeing a new coach on the sidelines, I knew things would be a little different. But I tried to make things go as smoothly as possible, especially with as big of a game this was.”

Waynesville continually trailed for three quarters before Kallie Bildner scored to finally get the lead.

It didn’t take long to see a tie, but with several successful free throws in the final frame, the Lady Tigers were able to hold off the state-ranked Jaybirds for the narrow 56-52 win.

Bildner and Ashton Pilz scored 18 points each to lead the team to the championship. Joining them in double numbers was Re’Shawna Stone with 11.

“Coach (Brad) Conway is a great coach,” Tiefenbrunn said. “He’s been successful at St. James and now he’s really successful at Jeff City. We just told the girls that rankings don’t matter when it comes to district time. The girls responded like we expected them to.”

The Lady Tigers are set to play Hickman (23-4) 6 p.m. Wednesday at State Fair Community College in Sedalia.

Perhaps Matlock will take her spot back for the playoffs.

Tiefenbrunn said, “When coach Matlock gets out of the hospital with the baby, we can all enjoy this together.”

Waynesville: Kallie Bildner 18, Ashton Pilz 18, Re’Shawna Stone 11, Kiara Shoulders 8, Nina Kizzee 1

Jefferson City: Nicole Martin 20, Megan Foster 12, Caitlin Anderson 12, Micah Linthocum 6, Alaina Allsbury 2

	1Q	2Q	3Q	4Q	F
Waynesville	8	15	18	15	56
Jefferson City	13	13	16	10	52

BOYS – CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS

Helping with coaching the Lady Tigers prior to the boys’ game was beneficial to Pilz.

“That really fired me up for that second game (boys game),” Pilz said. “Late in that fourth quarter those girls were engaged and locked in. They played well. That was really exciting and gave me some good energy.”

Putting that energy toward coaching, the Waynesville boys pulled out a 61-56 victory against Jefferson City for the district title – one they just missed earning last year for the second season in a row to the same Jaybirds squad.

One year ago, with the game tied up at 37, Jefferson City sunk a bucket with 1.2 seconds left on to clock for a ticket to the playoffs.

“We’ve had some very tough games with Jeff City,” said Pilz. “We just try to play one game at a time. And tonight we executed just a little better.”

Back-and-forth for the majority of the first half, Waynesville was able to secure a seven-point lead at both the halftime and third quarter buzzers.

Pilz said, “Defensively in the first half, we were about to play thirteen or fourteen minutes of man-to-man defense and we played it pretty solidly. We finished that half strong, built us a nine-point lead and then it deteriorated very quickly on a couple of missed free throws.”

Waynesville was up merely 57-56 with half a minute to go in the final frame.

But the Jaybirds got a bad case of foul trouble, and Waynesville went 8-for-10 from the free throw line to pull away with the district win.

Joe Johnson and Dwayne Morton led the way with 23 and 19 points, respectively.

“It’s a great thing to win the title,” said Pilz. “It’s exciting. Both our basketball teams played two really good teams. Jefferson City’s good, but boy, our girls just performed well and the boys performed well. I’m just happy for our basketball teams, our school and our community.”

The Tigers are set to play Blue Springs South (16-11) 7:45 p.m. Wednesday at State Fair Community College in Sedalia.

“We’ve had a very tough schedule,” said Pilz. “It’s had a lot of rigor in it and it’s been very difficult. I’ve told the guys all year long that some of these tough wins and tough losses will put a little skill in their spine. We know what good competition is. Hopefully this is going to prepare us to keep going.”