By Pat Dailey (For OzarkSportsZone.com)
CHADWICK — Working out of the same playbook in regards to defense, Chadwick’s boys and girls teams both rode their full-court pressure to Class 1 District 4 championships Saturday.
The Lady Cardinals forced Niangua to turn the ball over 30 times and rolled to a 53-29 victory in the girls final.
It was more of the same for the Cardinals. They forced Lutie to commit 34 turnovers and breezed to a 60-32 triumph in the boys title tilt.
For both Chadwick programs, it’s their second straight District championship season.
Lady Cardinals coach Scott Payne and Cardinals coach Shawn Guerin both passionately prioritize the press.
“That’s what I have our girls do and what he has our boys do,” Payne said. “We keep pressing until it’s not working and even if we do back out of our full-court press, we’ll run a half-court trap.”
The Lady Cardinals (21-5) began to break away from Niangua late in the second quarter. Niangua was within six of the lead, 20-14, before Chadwick went on a 20-7 run to go up 41-21.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE BOYS GAME
“The girls got sped up just a step. It kept us from following through on our offense,” Niangua coach Clint Gazette said. “This was our school’s first District championship game in 20-some years. The girls weren’t 100 percent sure what the atmosphere was going to be like. It was really keyed up. All the kids were bouncing around like they drank a 2-liter bottle of Coke.”
Chadwick freshmen Kerrigan Geurin and Raeleigh Little responded to their first District final by scoring 24 and 20 points. They thrived at the top of the Lady Cardinals’ full-court press.
“We put pressure on them and we turned our steals into points,” Little said.
“We’ve played them three times, so they knew what we were going to do. But we put (the press) on them and they had turnover after turnover,” Guerin said. “We’ve got a lot of good athletes. When we press, we put a lot of pressure on the opponent.”
Niangua (14-11) suited up only five players and after having one player foul out midway through the fourth quarter, continued on with four players. Ashlyn Callaway scored 18 points.
“For having five players, they worked very hard,” Little said.
“We knew with our depth and speed we could tire them down,” Payne said. “But to have five girls and do what they did, it was pretty impressive.”
“The girls don’t stop. We could be down 20 and they’re looking for a 20-point shot,” Gazette said. “They don’t even like me calling timeouts. They want to go as hard as they possibly can. I don’t have to run them in practice because they run seven miles in a game. They’ve got a little chip on their shoulders and play like it.”
In the boys game, both teams were averaging a turnover a minute in the early going. Chadwick settled down, but Lutie (7-13) didn’t. Of the Indians’ 34 turnovers, 20 came in the first half.
The Cardinals were up 43-18 at halftime.
“We knew if we could speed them up, we could get them to turn the ball over,” said Chadwick guard Garrett Gardner, who was honored before the game for joining the Cards’ 1,000-point club last week. “We made sure to put a lot of pressure on the in-bounds pass. Over time, that pressure wears on you. You get sick of it. We could see at the end of the first quarter, when they were throwing the ball all over, that we were starting to get them rattled.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GIRLS GAME
“We sped them up and got them throwing (the ball) all over the gym,” Chadwick center Clayton Rains said. “They got frustrated. We could tell we were in their heads and they were fixing to quit. That’s when we went for the kill.”
Chadwick (22-4), which owns wins this season over the likes of Hartville, Sparta, Greenwood and Skyline, received 17 points from Rains, 15 from Clayton Garrison and 13 from Paden Gilbert.
Looking ahead to Sectionals next week at West Plains, Chadwick will challenge South Iron in both the girls and boys games. A year ago at the same stage, South Iron swept Chadwick.
The Panthers are 24-4 and the Lady Panthers are 25-1.
“When we met South Iron last year, we realized the teams we struggled with teams that handled our pressure,” Shawn Guerin said. “It almost felt like we were one-dimensional. After we got home, I thought, ‘We have to be more than one-dimensional.’ So, we’ve worked on other things to hopefully prepare us better. We’ve been talking about this opportunity for a year now. We want to give ourselves a chance.”
Girls game
NIANGUA (29) — Stuber 2 0-0 4, Knifong 1 2-3 4, Terry 0 1-3 1, Callaway 6 5-8 18, Petty 1 0-2 2.
CHADWICK (53) — Jackson 0 1-2 1, Guerin 7 7-10 22, Little 10 0-0 20, Nalley 1 1-2 4, Loveland 1 0-0 2, Burkhart 0 0-2 0, Michael 0 0-1 0, Gilbert 1 2-2 4.
Niangua 7 8 6 8 – 29
Chadwick 15 12 14 12 – 53
3-point goals – Callaway, Guerin, Nalley.
Boys game
LUTIE (32) — Billingsley 2 0-0 5, Collins 3 2-2 8, Anderson 1 1-2 3, Ault 3 0-0 8, Garrison 1 0-2 2, Jennings 3 0-0 6.
CHADWICK (60) — Geurin 5 0-0 10, Gardner 2 0-1 5, Gilbert 5 3-4 13, Garrison 5 2-2 15, Rains 5 5-10 17,
Lutie 7 11 7 7 – 32
Chadwick 15 28 14 4 – 60
3-point goals – Garrison 3, Rains 2, Ault 2, Gardner, Billingsley.
