By Kai Raymer (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
There’s no doubting the Blue Eye Bulldogs anymore.
After watching its girls’ team win a district championship 90 minutes earlier, the Blue Eye boys followed suit, beating Crane 61-57 in the Class 2 District 11 Tournament championship game at Billings High School.
Saturday marked a full turnaround for a Blue Eye team that went 12-11 last year with no seniors on the roster.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for the school and the program,” said Bulldogs coach Kyle Turner. “To win it with the girls is really nice – we did that together (in 2018) when we won our last district title. It’s great for the community.
“We had to go through a lot to get to this point. We’ve kind of flown under the radar this year, which is fine. You have to earn that sort of thing.”
Isaiah Mitchell finished with a game-high 22 points. Teammate Lance Clark scored 20.
Blue Eye had to sweat out its first district championship since 2018.
Clinging to a four-point lead, the Bulldogs missed the front end of one-and-ones three times down the stretch.
“I trust all our kids when they go to the line,” Turner said. “But at that point, I’m getting nervous because Crane has a good team, too.”
Crane threatened to tie the game at 58 with 15 seconds left when Aiden Vaught made a layup while being fouled. He missed the ensuing free throw, and Mitchell made two free throws seconds later to extend Blue Eye’s lead to 60-57.
Crane missed a 3-pointer in the final seconds that would’ve tied the game.
Blue Eye will face College Heights Christian (23-4 overall), a private school in Joplin, at 7:45 p.m. March 2 at Carthage High School in the Class 2 sectional round.
While College Heights is state-ranked (No. 5 in Class 2), Blue Eye hasn’t sniffed the state rankings all season.
Blue Eye has used that slight as motivation.
“We play with a chip on our shoulder, every night,” Mitchell said. “We come out and don’t expect anything, we play like we haven’t earned anything. Really, we haven’t up until this point. It’s that mentality we’ve played with, like nobody believes we can win but us.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
For Mitchell, Saturday’s victory also gives him family bragging rights.
His older brothers – Christian and Andrew – were star players for Blue Eye. Andrew helped Blue Eye win a district championship in 2018.
But baby brother is the only one to win a conference championship and a district championship. The Bulldogs went undefeated in league play this year.
“I grew up watching them play and have a lot of success with Blue Eye. It’s cool to have that bragging right on them,” Mitchell said. “They’ve always been my older brothers, so it’s always like, ‘Oh, he’s the older brother so he’s better.’ It’s nice to have bragging rights on them, with conference and district titles now.
“If they ever say anything, I’m going to bring up, ‘Hey, did you ever win conference? Little brother’s stepping up on you.’”
Aiden Vaught and Taylor Calzaretta each scored 19 for Crane, which finished 13-15 overall.
Blue Eye 61, Blue Eye 57
Crane 19 11 16 11 — 57
Blue Eye 13 20 14 14 — 61
Crane (13-15 overall) – Aiden Vaught 19, Taylor Calzaretta 19, Aric Spyres 14, Nolan Brawley 4, Sam Woodward 1
Blue Eye (23-4 overall) – Isaiah Mitchell 22, Lance Clark 20, Ryan Cardenzana 7, Logan Isbell 6, Lucas Estes 5, Brady Isbell 1
