By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
MARSHFIELD — Even as his team faced an 18-point deficit late in the first half, West Plains coach Scott Womack never hit the panic button.
“During one of the timeouts there in the second quarter, I said if we can get it back to 10 (points) at half we have a chance,” Womack said. “I just felt like we had that confidence.”
The Zizzers only wound up cutting their halftime deficit to 12, but that just made their second-half comeback more thrilling.
The defending state champions rode a dominant late-game performance to their fourth straight district championship on Tuesday, rallying for a 53-40 victory over Rolla in the Class 5 District 6 title game at Marshfield High School.
The top-seeded Zizzers scored 42 of the game’s final 53 points — and outscored Rolla 36-11 in the second half — to punch their ticket to the state quarterfinals.
West Plains (22-7) will face District 5 champion Jefferson City (21-7) at 5:45 p.m. Saturday at Southwest Baptist University for a chance to advance to its third consecutive Final Four.
Such an accomplishment seemed improbable as the Zizzers trailed 29-11 with less than four minutes remaining in the second quarter, as Rolla hit six 3-pointers to take a commanding lead.
From there, it was all West Plains.
The Zizzers closed the half on a 6-0 run and carried the momentum into the final two quarters, at one point going on a 26-1 run. They held the Bulldogs to one field goal in the final 11 minutes and just five points in the fourth quarter.
It was their second come-from-behind victory over the Bulldogs of the season, as the Zizzers also beat their Ozark Conference rivals en route to a conference championship.
“We played them three weeks ago and were down 12 in the third quarter against them and came back and won,” Womack said. “We just felt like if we could hang around and get it to the fourth quarter, I thought (with) our experience we’d have a chance. That’s all we wanted.”
Once again, they made the most of that opportunity.
“We had a couple of miscues there late in the first half that led to some easy points for them,” Rolla coach Charley Parker said. “Probably like seven or eight points off of turnovers that led to easy buckets and kind of let them back in it and gave them a little bit of hope. I told the girls at halftime you can’t get a good team like that get hope because they’ll take that hope and they’ll run with it.”
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West Plains senior Kaylea Dixon, in foul trouble for most of the first half, opened the second with a 3-pointer that ensured the team’s momentum wouldn’t die at halftime.
Allyssa Joyner and Olivia Lawson also made key shots for the Zizzers during the third quarter, which ended with Rolla clinging to a 35-34 lead.
Dixon opened the fourth quarter with another 3-pointer that put West Plains ahead for the first time all night. The Zizzers never surrendered the lead.
“I think they believed right then,” Womack said. “I just really, truly think they believed.”
West Plains held Rolla scoreless for the opening 5:52 of the fourth quarter, when the Bulldogs broke up a 19-0 run with a free throw. The Zizzers answered with seven straight points to take a 51-36 lead with 33.3 seconds to play.
“I think us scoring on offense really made us pick up on the defensive end,” Womack said. “I know we caused a lot of turnovers there in the second half, maybe caused them to take some rushed shots.”
The onslaught prevented the Bulldogs from being able to replicate their first-half success.
“When you’re dealing with kids and they start making a mistake here and making a mistake there, they can just kind of feel the walls closing in around them,” Parker said. “They keep kicking it around and it’s hard to get them to refocus and get down and get back to what was working for us. We tried it here and there and we got a bucket and then all of a sudden we’d get loose with the ball again and they’d make another run and just kept kicking us while we were down.”
Willow Gideon led Rolla with 16 points, including the 1,000th of her career. Resa Martin added 10 for the Bulldogs, who ended the year 23-6.
Joyner (15 points), Dixon (13) and Lawson (13) all finished in double-figures for West Plains, who graduated just one senior from last season’s state championship team.
Granted, that senior was Mizzou signee Ashton Judd — and the Zizzers have been fielding questions about their chances of winning a title without her all season.
“We just prove them wrong,” Joyner said. “I hate hearing ‘Oh, I don’t know if you guys are going to make it to a championship.’ And then yep, here we are. We just keep pushing on.”
“Early in the summer, they were looking for Ashton,” Womack added. “But they kind of found their roles and stayed together. The thing about these girls is this is the fourth district in a row they’ve won. Been to the Final Four the last two years. They believe in themselves. They’re very confident in terms of their abilities and they played well as a team. They know we win it on the defensive end. They were really disappointed at halftime because they knew we didn’t play much defense that first half.”
The balanced scoring attack the Zizzers displayed Tuesday has also been key to their success. They’ve now won 11 consecutive games.
“That’s the way we’re going to win,” Womack said. “Last year, we were a team where we were counting on one player to score all these points. This year, we have four players that scored 23 or more points in a game. I think we can get it from anybody.”
ROLLA (23-6) 19 10 6 5 — 40
WEST PLAINS (22-7) 8 9 17 9 — 53
