By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Before this week it had been nearly two months since the Purdy boys basketball team won consecutive games.
The Eagles hadn’t won more than two in a row all season.
But Purdy turned earned three-straight wins in the Class 2 District 12 tournament at Webb City and beat top-seeded Thomas Jefferson 47-45 on Friday night in the championship.
“Oh my gosh, it’s so amazing,” head coach Ryan Stokes said. “We went through that January, I was so sick. We were so up and down because I wasn’t up and I wasn’t there all the time and I was running off the floor puking and sick for like four weeks and the boys just kind of fought through it. But I told them when I got healthy and we got back i was like, ‘Now it’s time.’ It’s just special because we fought. We could have gave up early in the season but we didn’t.”
Third-seeded Purdy never trailed against Thomas Jefferson. The Eagles led by as many as 12 points in the third quarter and then withstood the Cavaliers’ late charge.
Three times in the fourth quarter Thomas Jefferson managed to tie the game. Purdy answered on its next possession every time.
The Eagles led 33-23 with 1:47 left in the third quarter but Thomas Jefferson went on a 10-0 run to tie the game with 7:31 remaining when senior Brock Conklin made his second-straight three pointer.
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Eighteen seconds later, Purdy junior Osiel Aldava answered to make it 35-33.
With 4:51 remaining Thomas Jefferson tied it at 37 on a basket by senior Dylan Dean-Heck.
Twenty-one seconds later, Purdy senior Scotty Henry threw down a dunk.
Then, with 1:14 on the clock, Conklin struck again from three-point range to tie the game at 45.
Purdy missed its first shot after that and the ball bounced around in a scrum under the basket. Aldava finally corralled it right underneath and scored with 32 seconds left in the game.
The Cavaliers got off at least three shots in the frantic final seconds. After two misses and two offensive rebounds, head coach Chris Myers called timeout with 7.8 seconds on the clock and drew up a play for the win.
But Conklin couldn’t connect again from three and the ball bounced out of bounds as the buzzer sounded.
“I thought we executed it well,” Myers said. “We got our guys open through the screens, got the dribble drive and the kick to the three-point line and got a nice look at it. Just wasn’t meant to be tonight.”
“We played great defense the first half,” Stokes said. “We had a little issue in that third quarter but yeah, that’s kind of been our motto. Let’s dirty it up. Let’s make the game not pretty. Let’s just get stops. They got like four offensive rebounds in a row before they called a timeout. I was sick. But we found a way. That’s been our thing every time is find a way and we found a way.”
Purdy limited Thomas Jefferson to just five points in the first quarter and led 21-12 at halftime. The Eagles’ biggest lead was 30-18 with 3:47 left in the third.
Myers said the Cavaliers came out flat in the first half and credited Purdy’s defense for that.
“They’re scrappy and the tempo they play, they want to try to get you to play at their tempo,” he said. “Obviously the big man inside kills you whenever he’s blocking shots and you’re unable to get to the rim. You have to rely on those perimeter shots and they weren’t going early which got us a little bit flustered. In the second half we were able to get to the rim a little bit and it opened up that three-point line so we were getting a little better looks.”
That big man was Henry, a 7-footer for the Eagles. He scored 13 points and added 10 rebounds and six blocks. Two of those blocks came at crucial points in the fourth quarter, the first right after his dunk with Purdy leading 39-37 and the second in the final two minutes of the fourth with the Eagles up 44-42.
Aldava handled most of the scoring for Purdy. He finished with 17 points and also grabbed nine rebounds.
“Scottie started out just a little bit jittery,” Stokes said. “He couldn’t catch the ball in the first half and then he got after it in the second half. His defensive presence, he changes games. He doesn’t have to score on the offensive end, he changes games. I thought he had seven or eight blocks and then just getting rebounds and Osiel – man, Osiel’s special. We have a special player in Osiel Aldava and it’s more than that though. Clay Henderson ran the point all night. Zach Brewer hit some huge three’s. Jake (Brown) came up with some huge steals and then Harley (Stephens) a couple big rebounds, a couple easy buckets where they weren’t paying attention. Those six guys busted their tails.”
Dean-Heck scored 13 points and had eight rebounds for Thomas Jefferson and senior Chase Kellenberger added 12 points.
