By Kary Booher
Mansfield, MO –
Mansfield 75, Morrisville 50
For 6-foot-9 sophomore Dylan Caruso, being the big man on campus isn’t exactly an easy thing.
On one end of the basketball floor, he’s sweating to disrupt shots. On the other, he gets triple-teamed down in the low post and has to kick the ball out to teammates salivating for the next 3-pointer.
But Caruso doesn’t mind putting on the hard hat, so to speak, for the Mansfield Lions, so long as his play keeps fueling a nice season. That’s what played out Thursday night, when Mansfield beat Morrisville 75-50 in a semifinal of the Mansfield Tournament, with Caruso becoming a focal point in the paint and the Lions living large outside.
The Lions built a 25-point advantage before halftime by converting 16 of 31 shots. That included eight 3-pointers – four by Jonah Williamson and three by Payton Watterson.
Caruso finished with a modest 11 points but gladly played the role of monster almost everywhere on both ends of the floor.
“As long as we keep winning, that’s OK,” Caruso said. “It’s a team, not one player. I’ll be able to score some too. But if my teammates can score, I have no problem seeing them score.”
Williamson and Mason Roy each scored 14 points, Watterson 12 and Trenton Emerick 10 for Mansfield, which advanced to play in the tournament championship at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Overall, the Lions have an interesting balance because it’s not just Caruso inside. They also have 6-foot-6 junior Dylan Tate, whose defense can be disruptive and, given his size, someone other teams must eye on the offensive end.
Although on Thursday, Morrisville continually triple-teamed Caruso, whose game is still improving.
“He needs to get his field-goal percentage a little higher,” Mansfield coach Terry Writer said. “He is under pressure, but there are some shots we need him to make.”
That said, Writer expressed optimism about his team overall, which is now 5-0.
The flow of the offense is coming along and a prime example was the first half. Kick-outs to Williamson and Waterson on back-to-back possessions led to 3-pointers and a 13-3 advantage, and the 3s kept coming. The Lions hit 3-pointers on three consecutive possessions of the second quarter and the lead kept growing, hitting 25 points – 41-26 – on another 3 from Williamson.
It wasn’t until the second half when Caruso showed more offensive versatility, as he had a turnaround, baseline jumper and also attacked the rim.
“(Caruso) helps us out a lot,” Williamson said. “And we back him up with our outside shots. And with Michael Tate in the pay, it’s great having two bigs.”
Meanwhile, Connor Wilkins scored 15 points for Morrisville, which did have a bright spot by outscoring Mansfield 16-14 in the third quarter.
But Mansfield was on a mission regardless. The tournament dates back to 1937, but the Lions haven’t won it since 2007.
For Writer, it’s nice but still a long way to go.
“It’s early in the year, and we’re getting ready to get into the tougher part of our schedule. We’re going to have to smooth out some things,” Writer said. “We just need to take care of the basketball, executing. A little bit of everything. A coach is never satisfied.”
Ava 48, Seymour 41
They’ve spent months trying to bury last season and that 5-20 record, using the summer in the gym to improve and talking about how to build a new foundation.
But no one needed to tell the Ava Bears boys basketball team that it was all talk until they actually showed grit under the lights and found a way to the win column.
So how nice it was for Ava on Thursday night when junior Anthony Rosas and senior Colton Skyles bulldogged their way – and the Bears’ way – through the fourth quarter, securing a 48-41 victory against the Seymour Tigers in a semifinal of the Mansfield Tournament.
Put it this way, Ava is now 3-2 and plays host Mansfield for the tournament title at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Pretty good for a team sticking to its motto of “New Year, New Big Year” under new coach Mike Mallow.
“We came in and learned the new coaching system. We were ready to get to work,” Skyles said. “It’s all about effort. I think, as a senior, we need to show toughness for the underclassmen and set the mentality for this team.”
Rosas, a 6-foot-6 forward, and Skyles, built like a football lineman, scored 14 and 12 points respectively and did most of the heavy lifting in the fourth quarter.
That was significant on a night when Seymour, after trailing by 11 points early in the game, rallied and forged a 33-33 tie on Cy Yates’ 3-pointer late in the third quarter.
But Rosas bulled his way for baskets on two of Ava’s first three possessions of the fourth quarter, helping the Bears maintain a one-point advantage.
Skyles, unafraid to dive for loose balls or guard out on the perimeter, scored a bucket and two free throws with an 3 ½-minute span to keep momentum for Ava, which then got a big rebound on the other end.
That led to Rosas scoring on another inside move, pushing the advantage to 46-41 with 1:10 left. In essence, he was backing up words said over the summer.
“We had a lot of guys commit to the process (in the summer), just commit to the grind, and that’s what you’ve got to do at the high school varsity level,” Rosas said. “Like anything, you’ve got to commit to it.”
A key for Ava was Mallow’s decision early to turn to a zone defense. Foul trouble has plagued the Bears in prior games.
“The initial idea was to play enough zone to steal five or six minutes without fouls, and it worked well enough that we stuck with it for awhile,” said Mallow, whose team got eight of Caleb Johnson’s 10 points in the first half. “We got back to man-to-man and, with the game on the line, we stayed with man-to-man.”
For Seymour (4-1), it was a learning experience.
The Tigers built momentum just before halftime and managed to keep it into the third quarter, mostly thanks to a 2-3 zone defense and an offense that spread the floor, creating lanes.
Sophomore Brady Brooke came off the bench to score eight points in the second half, and his driving layups eventually set up Yates with the game-tying bucket.
However, Yates, one of Seymour’s top players, was saddled with foul trouble throughout. He sat the final 4:34 of the first half after getting whistled for his second foul, and then got hit with his third foul at the 6-minute mark of the third quarter. He played with four fouls most of the way.
Yates finished with 14 points for Seymour, which plays Morrisville in the third-place game at 6 p.m. Saturday.
“They came out to play to start the game, and we came out a little sluggish and tried to fight back the whole game instead of playing that way from the start,” Seymour coach Chris Hastings said. “Yates is a big part of our offense and defense. When he went out, we had to bring in more sophomores, making us more young. We’re in trouble without him, so we need him on the floor.”
