By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
All it took was one six-point loss to Miller to knock the Golden City basketball team out of the state rankings completely.
If the Eagles – who were ranked fourth on January 19 – needed a reminder ahead of Thursday’s contest against Thomas Jefferson, all they had to do was walk down the hallway.
“If you go through that hallway actually I’ve got 20 pieces of paper with the Class 1 state rankings on their lockers because they took us out of it and Thomas Jefferson is number eight so I wanted to prove to the team that we’re not as good as we think we are and we need to keep working,” Reeves said.
Golden City (15-4) responded with a convincing 69-55 win against the Cavaliers, overcoming a 10-point deficit late in the first half with a barrage of three pointers and four players scoring in double figures.
Thomas Jefferson (13-3) led 30-25 at the half, but three pointers by seniors Matthew Weiser and Chain Parrill gave the Eagles a lead just 68 seconds into the third quarter. That was the first of six lead changes in the quarter before Golden City pulled away in the fourth.
Reeves blamed the first half deficit on a sluggish defense.
“We just came out a step slow on defense to let them kind of dictate how they wanted to play,” he said. “We weren’t trying to anticipate anything. We were a step slow. They were getting shots they wanted – they hit six three’s in that first half. Second half we just came out, put our foot on the pedal and we were the ones dictating the game.”
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“We just weren’t being dogs defensively and that’s something we wanted to do is come out and be dogs defensively,” Weiser said. “We kind of showed that and that translated to offense. It was good for us.”
Cavaliers junior Caden Myers poured in 13 points in the first half but was limited to just five in the second half. And Thomas Jefferson only made one three pointer after half time.
With just three minutes left in the first half, though, the Cavaliers held a 27-17 advantage.
“It all kind of started in the first half,” coach Chris Myers said. “We had a couple possessions to let them kind of scratch their way back in. We had a 10-point lead with about three minutes to play and let them cut it to five. Just a couple sloppy possessions on our part that I thought really played a big part in the game. They came out and just shot the ball well the second half. We got a little out of sync. Hats off to them, they really shot the ball well in the second half and were able to get it done tonight.”
The Eagles made five three-point attempts in the third quarter alone and took a 47-44 lead into the fourth quarter.
Myers briefly tied it at 47 with a triple of his own, but Weiser answered with another three pointer to give Golden City the lead for good. A Weiser three at the 4:52 mark made it 55-49, and a Lane Dunlap three made it 58-51 with 3:33 remaining. Weiser added another at the 2:47 mark, and then a field goal and free throw by Parrill made it 64-53 with two minutes to go.
Weiser finished with a game-high 24 points – all on three pointers.
“My teammates, they’ve been preaching in practice to have me shoot in games,” he said. “I shoot these shots in practice all the time. It’s just a matter of translating it into a ballgame. They really helped build my confidence. They told me to shoot, I shot tonight and good things came out of it.”
Reeves said Weiser was a 35-percent shooter from three-point range last season but got off to a slow start in the first 15 games of this season.
“The last three he’s starting to pick it up,” he said. “Against Miller he was 2-for-4, Exeter 4-of-5, tonight he was 8-of-9. He’s doing what everyone in this program knew he could do.”
Parrill added 17 points and Dunlap scored 17 after going into the half with just four. Josh Reeves added 10. Thomas Jefferson was led by Myers’ 18 and also received 13 from Jay Ball.
The win was Golden City’s second at home against a ranked opponent in the last two weeks; the Eagles also knocked off Class 1 No. 2 Lockwood by 13 points. But the team is looking for better starts in the future against unranked opponents.
“We’re kind of playing bad against teams we don’t think can really compete with us,” Weiser said. “We need to come out every night with that same energy, whether they’re ranked in state or not. That’s something we’re really focusing on moving forward into the rest of the season.”
If Myers has his way, the Eagles will face at least one more ranked opponent this season: his Cavaliers, again.
“We understand that we’re as good as we are, I think they understand. We’ve got a mutual respect with them,” he said. “Our goal is we want to face them again somewhere down the road, representing our conference. I believe it would be the quarterfinals and I think we’re both good enough to get there so that’s kind of the message. Stay focused and stay at it and find a way to make sure we get to play them again.”
