By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
SPRINGFIELD — On a night when Logan-Rogersville’s offense scored a grand total of 11 points in the first half, the team needed its defense to step up to extend its undefeated streak.
The Wildcats were once again up to the challenge – and what a challenge it was.
Logan-Rogersville’s defense got the stops it needed and the Wildcats did just enough on offense to score a 40-34 victory over Greenwood in a Blue & Gold Tournament semifinal on Wednesday night at Great Southern Bank Arena.
Curry Sutherland scored a team-high 19 points as the second-seeded Wildcats improved to 10-0 on the season and advanced to the Gold Division championship game. They will face top-seeded Nixa (11-0) at 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Great Southern Bank Arena, with their sights set on their first Blue & Gold title since 2018.
But that seemed like a distant possibility at halftime, as the Wildcats struggled to settle into an offensive rhythm against a sixth-seeded Greenwood team looking to secure its second straight upset. The hosts narrowly defeated third-seeded Strafford on Tuesday.
“There were many times I said on that bench ‘Yep, we’re going to get beat. Yep, we’re going to get beat,’” Wildcats coach John Schaefer said. “It was one of those nights where no basketball would go through the hoop for us. We were our own worst enemy.”
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As Logan-Rogersville’s offense sputtered, Greenwood surged to a 10-2 lead before the end of the first quarter. But the Wildcats defense responded by limiting the Blue Jays to just five points the rest of the half, preventing Greenwood from building an insurmountable lead.
That kind of defensive effort typically helps jumpstart a struggling offense – but Logan-Rogersville was not able to build on that momentum until just after halftime.
They entered the break trailing 15-11, but opened the third quarter on a 10-2 run to take their first lead of the night.
“It was mental – most of it,” Schaefer added. “We couldn’t execute sets. When we were down two, we were playing like we’re down 10.”
Greenwood responded with a run of its own, reclaiming a 27-26 lead by the end of the period. Logan-Rogersville didn’t take the lead for good until there were 57 seconds remaining in regulation, when Brody McNeil’s 3-pointer gave them a 35-34 advantage.
The Wildcats went 5-for-6 from the foul line over the final minute to survive the scare.
McNiel finished with eight points for Logan-Rogersville, while Ross Lawrence added seven.
“That was very, very ugly,” Sutherland said. “We couldn’t get anything going offensively. We had to rely on our defense to get stops and get us the ball back to get something going offensively. Our defense carried us through that game right there.”
A strong defensive effort isn’t uncommon for the Wildcats, who have held opponents under 50 points in all but one of their games this season. But the offensive struggles were new for a team that had never scored fewer than 51 points in a game before running into Greenwood’s defense.
“Once we figured out we weren’t scoring the ball very well, hey, we can’t make it,” Schaefer said. “We have no confidence. That really showed its face tonight. Like I told them here, we can shoot. I’ve seen you shoot it. You’re not now 10-0 for no reason. I said ‘That’s doable, so you’re going to have to do some things.’ I think they got caught up in the moment.”
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If anything, the fact that Logan-Rogersville’s defense was strong enough to carry the Wildcats to a victory on their worst offensive night of the season – in a Blue & Gold semifinal, no less — should serve as an even larger endorsement of the team’s borderline historic play in its own end.
The Wildcats have allowed just 83 points in their first three Blue & Gold games, an average of 27.6 per outing.
If they can find a way to hold the Eagles to 50 points or fewer, they would break a 73-year-old Gold Division record for fewest points allowed in a four-game tournament.
Buffalo surrendered just 134 en route to winning the 1949 Gold Division championship, establishing a record that has stood for nearly the entirety of the tournament’s 77-year run.
The overall Blue & Gold record is also within Logan-Rogersville’s reach, as Central allowed 132 points during their run to the 1955 Blue Division championship.
But even after scoring just 53 against Fair Grove in the other Gold Division semifinal on Wednesday, Nixa is still averaging about 70 points per game.
“You can always rely on your defense when you’re having rough nights offensively,” Sutherland said. “We’re hoping that our defense will be there again tomorrow against Nixa, who is obviously a really good opponent.”
Nick Burri scored his 1,000th career point and finished with a team-high 18 for Greenwood (9-2), which will face fifth-seeded Fair Grove at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Great Southern Bank Arena in the third-place game.
“They did a great job of what they had to do,” Schaefer said. “Got in foul trouble, but they played smart, played slow, made us make shots and they protected the rim. And we couldn’t make a shot. … Right now, we’re just happy to be in the championship and feel like we’re lucky.”
LOGAN-ROGERSVILLE 4 7 15 14 — 40
GREENWOOD 10 5 12 7 — 34
