By Brock Sisney (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
WEBB CITY — For most of the first half Friday night, the College Heights Cougars precisely resembled a team playing for the first time for a district championship.
The Liberal Bulldogs, winners of back-to-back district titles in 2018 and 2019, built a 29-18 lead around the midway point of the second quarter, sparked by a hot-shooting first quarter from junior Caleb Suschnick and a 7-0 spurt featuring five straight points from Gunner Miller and a steal-and-score by Kale Marti.
Then, everything changed dramatically in the Class 2, District 12 championship game at the Cardinal Dome, as the Cougars outscored the Bulldogs 51-16 the rest of the way for an emphatic 69-45 victory and their first district title.
College Heights’ 6-foot-5 sophomore Curtis Davenport scored 21 points to lead a trio of Cougars who combined for 58 points Friday, most of them scored inside the paint against a decisively smaller Bulldogs team.
“I honestly don’t think I can put it into words,” Davenport said. “It means so much to us, because we’ve been working so hard this season to get here. We’re a tight-knit group, so that’s why we were celebrating so avidly over there on the bench. I’m speechless.
“I was really nervous before the game. I had butterflies in my stomach. I honestly felt like I was going to throw up. You’ve got to turn around and tell yourself that you’re ready to go and ready to face anything that’s thrown at you out there. We just went out there and played our game. First half was rough and in the second half, we came out and blew the doors open. The rest is history, literally.”
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College Heights outscored Liberal 21-4 in the third quarter and 42-12 overall after halftime. The Bulldogs endured the first 6:09 of the third without a field goal.
On the offensive end, Davenport, 6-4 junior Hagen Beck, and 6-3 junior Miller Long made the Bulldogs pay time and time again.
“That’s the way we played Tuesday night the whole game,” College Heights head coach Eric Johnson said. “They outplayed us first half, they got loose balls and rebounds, and made their shots. We didn’t really chew them out at halftime. We just said this is what we need to do better and we came out and did it.
“The intensity picked up and we extended our defense more than what we did first half, which caused them a lot of problems. They were shooting from 25 feet instead of 20 the first half. Once they penetrated, we have big guys in there to shoot over. We talked about that at halftime, extend the defense, make them put the ball on the floor when they want to sit out there and shoot wide-open shots.”
“The attitude was we didn’t have the best first half,” Davenport said, “But we were going to come out and change that. Our coach (Steve Harrel) told us that we are a good third-quarter team and we’re going to go out and blow the doors off these guys. We went out there and outscored them 42-12 in the second half.”
Long finished with 19 points and Beck added 18.
“It definitely helped a lot,” Davenport said of the size advantage over Liberal. “It was the biggest difference. That was one thing we focused on all week in practice coming in, about we had a size advantage on these guys. We just tried to pound the ball inside whenever we can. Get every rebound. Get easy layups. Shoot open shots when we get them, but before we shoot it and before we settle for a jump shot, try and drive it in and get an easy layup. That’s how we play basketball.”
College Heights takes a 17-9 overall record into a sectional contest Tuesday night against Crane (18-5).
Suschnick led top seed Liberal (15-11) with 16 points, only five of which he scored after his torrid first quarter. Miller finished with nine points.
