Envelope in hand, Brett Reed entered Hartville’s locker room and let out a scream…
“Whoooooooooo!!!!!!”
Finally, the wait is over.
Hartville is headed back to the Final Four after a 71-48 Class 2 quarterfinal win over Purdy Saturday at the O’Reilly Family Event Center. It is the Eagles first trip to Columbia since 1998.
“We’ve been knocking on the door for several years now it and finally opened,” said Reed. “We finally get to go to the big house. There is nowhere in the world that is more beautiful than Columbia in March.”
It wasn’t pretty early. In fact, Reed called a time out just 2:37 into the first quarter with the score tied, 2-2, hoping to snap his team out of their funk.
It worked, briefly, as his team responded with a quick 6-0 spurt, but Purdy was able to match Hartville nearly bucket for bucket in the first eight minutes.
Then came the typical Hartville run, starting the second quarter with a 13-0 push. Hartville outscored Purdy 23-5 in the second quarter, led by nine points from senior Ryan Ward.
“This is the first team we’ve played that is faster than us,” said Purdy coach Tommy Egan. “We always play teams bigger, but that was the first team we’ve seen that is that fast and I think it kind of shocked our kids just a little. We thrilled with the start of the game, but that second quarter their transition took over and it was tough to comeback from.”
Hartville led 39-17 at the half with Ward scoring 15 points and classmate Grant Dedmon adding. The senior duo, which has combined to score more than 3,000 points collectively, finished with 24 and 21 respectively.
“We know what we are going to get out of Ryan pretty much every night and Grant’s had his games where he’s been really good and he’s had games where he hasn’t scored as much,” said Reed. “Anytime we can get some things going in transition it just helps us flow better. Getting easy points is always a good thing.”
From there Hartville and Purdy played 16 minutes of nearly even basketball (32-31), but the damage was already done.
Deric Jones added 11 points for Hartville. Seven different players scored for Purdy, with Sydney Birge’s 10 points being a team-high.
Despite being the No. 3 seed entering district play, Purdy was able to upset No. 1 McAuley and No. 2 Pierce City in district play; two teams the Eagles lost to during the regular season.
It was Purdy’s first 20-win season since 2008-09.
“These guys play so hard every game,” said Egan. “If it’s a game we’re supposed to win big they go out and don’t play to the level of their competition. If it’s a game we’re supposed to lose they still go out there and compete; no matter the stakes they’re going to go out and give it their all.”
As competitors we hate losing and everyone in here is a competitor, but if you take a step back from it, this was a special season. We don’t want to think about the negative, we want to take the positive and the good things we did this year. This was a really special season.”
For Dedmon, Saturday was especially sweet.
He remembers watching Strafford celebrate back in 2014 after pulling out a last second win to advance to the Class 3 Final Four.
Now, he and his Eagles are just two wins away from a state championship.
“I’ve always dreamed of going to state,” said Dedmon. “I can remember being a sophomore and losing to Strafford in the quarterfinals by one point and it was heartbreaking. Now all we have to do is go up there and play. We’ve already achieved what we want, but now we have bigger goals. We want to go up there and win too.”
Hartville will play No. 2 Wellington-Napoleon, a 63-59 winner over Skyline on Saturday, on Mar. 10 at 1:40 p.m. in Columbia.
Hartville 71, Purdy 48
Hartville 16-23-19-13 – 71
Purdy 12-5-18-13 – 48
Hartville (27-4) – Ward 24, Dedmon 21, Jones 11, J. Keith 7, Piper 4, B. Keith 2, Meyer 2.
Purdy (20-9) – Birge 10, Cook 9, Keeler 9, Salazar 8, Easley 6, Garcia 3, Aldaba 3.
