By Denise Tucker
Halfway, Mo. – Is it possible for a 30-point win to not feel like a 30-point win?
It is, if you’re Hermitage High School coach Joe Nicholson.
“Now that it’s over, I’m glad that it happened, but while it was happening I wasn’t glad about it,” Nicholson said, following his Hornets’ 86-56 Class 1 District 7 semifinal win over Lakeland on Wednesday night. “I don’t think we were really doing anything wrong, I just thought we looked a little bit nervous, a little bit scared. And, for a minute or two, we got unsure of our shots, we got unsure of our passes, and I think we just lost confidence. I’m not sure why, but we’re going to find out why.
“At halftime, we talked about that. I said, ‘Hey we’re the same team that’s 24-3. We’re better than that, so let’s fix it,’ and I think when we came out in the second half, we did fix it.”
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The Hornets (25-3), who are ranked 11th in the most recent Ozarks Sports Zone’s Power Rankings and No. 4 in Class 1, and whose last loss came on Feb. 1 (80-71 to Fair Play), held an 18-12 lead after the first quarter. After Lakeland opened the second with a 6-0 run to pull within two points (28-26) to make things interesting, Hermitage closed out the quarter with a 9-0 run of its own, to take a 37-28 lead at halftime, sparked by the 10 second-quarter points of Dillon Meyer.
“We love to push the ball up and play quick,” Nicholson said. “And, everybody we play, that tends to frustrate. They’re (Lakeland) as good as we are, if not better at pushing it right back. The (Landon) Dull kid is an incredible player and he did a great job of shoving it right back in our face and putting it right back on their end.
“I have a ton of respect for that team. I told them, when we were going through the line, that, ‘Hey, next year, you guys are probably the team to beat.’ They’re a lot better team than a lot of teams that we played, and that game was a lot closer than what that scoreboard said. We just had a couple of runs there.”
The turning point came in the third quarter when the Hornets outscored the Vikings 32-17.
“That’s just what Hermitage does,” Lakeland coach Tyler Janke said. “They’ve got those first five who are all state-champion cross country runners, so you can’t really wear them down. You’ve just got to hope to get them in a little bit of foul trouble.
“It takes a good team to stay up with them. And, I tell my kids that they (Hermitage) are where we are going to be at, so we’re moving in the right direction.”
But the third quarter was sparked by Meyer’s 16 points, with nearly all of the shots coming on layups and pull-up jumpers.
“Dillon is a great player,” Nicholson said of his senior. “He surpassed 1,500 points (recently), and I think he’s over 1,600 now. I’ve been here four years and these guys were freshmen when I came, and so I think we’re really starting to understand each other and get each other.
“Dillon had to convert this year; he has played outside for us every year, so this year we had to move him inside because all of our big guys are gone. He’s had an incredible season. He’s definitely been our go-to guy – when we need a basket, he gets it. “
And, not to get lost in Meyer’s offensive output and the 30-point win is senior Jeff Salmon collecting his 1,000th point Wednesday night.
“Jeff, I’m really proud of him,” Nicholson said. “I think Jeff had 13 points at the end of his freshman year, and 90 at the end of his sophomore year. That guy works 24-7. You just don’t walk in the gym without him being in there. He’s always shooting, working on things, looking at film. He loves the game of basketball. I’m thrilled to death for him to get 1,000, because nobody that I’ve ever been around, works harder than this kid.”
And Nicholson knows it’s going to take his team’s ‘A’ game to beat second-seeded Wheatland in Friday night’s championship game.
“We’ve played Wheatland twice already. We know how good they are,” Nicholson said. “We just played them last Friday night, so I expect it to be a hard-fought battle.
“We’ll have our hands full, and we’ll have to play well to get out of here Friday night. I told my team that we won’t play a team the rest of this season that’s not a top-notch team – it just won’t happen. We’ll have to play extremely well, but if we do those things on Friday night, I believe we’ll come out on top.”
No. 1 HERMITAGE 86, No. 4 LAKELAND 56
Class 1 District 7 semifinal
LAKELAND – 12-16-17-11—56
HERMITAGE – 18-19-32-19—86
LAKELAND (14-12) – Landon Dull 19, James Hughes 9, Zach Hinkle 8, Ryan Taylor 8, Hunter Booker 8, Chris Lentz 4.
HERMITAGE (25-3) – Dillon Meyer 38, Jeff Salmon 21, Victor Le Verdier 16, Austin Hostettler 11.
Up next: (Championship) No. 1 Hermitage vs. No. 2 Wheatland, 6 p.m. Friday
