By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
As head coach Mitch McHenry puts it, Kickapoo’s boys basketball team has been humbled several times this season.
But the Chiefs have always bounced back.
They lost five of seven at one point, and then won seven in a row. They lost at Pembroke Hill in the regular season finale and responded by running through the district gauntlet unscathed.
Kickapoo was humbled again at times on Friday night in a Class 6 quarterfinal in Bolivar against Lee’s Summit West. And again, the Chiefs bounced back, this time with a thrilling 49-43 win that sends the program to the Final Four for the third time in four years.
“It feels really, really good,” McHenry said. “They all feel good but this one’s awesome.”
“Last year we had a really tough finish to a good year and for these guys to bounce back this year and just do what it takes against really, really good teams…”
The Chiefs opened district play with a 20-point win over Carthage, then beat 24-win Republic by 10. Then came an eight-point win against 28-win Nixa, which was undefeated. And on Friday, Kickapoo downed a 26-win Lee’s Summit West squad.
Kickapoo, now 22-8, advances to face Troy Buchanan, 25-5, in a noon semifinal Friday at Great Southern Bank Arena in Springfield. The winner will play for the state championship at 2 p.m. next Saturday.
“We’re guarding at a high level,” McHenry said. “We’re guarding and defending and rebounding. I haven’t had a team that’s made a Final Four that hasn’t bought in defensively and they’re buying in defensively. To hold a team like that to 43 points, I have a feeling we won the rebounding battle – I’m not sure, but we rebounded our tails off for four quarters when we were outsized and they had more strength across the board and that’s just the want to, the willpower. I think us guarding at a high level gives you a chance every single day because you can’t determine whether you hit shots or not.”
The Titans, who were fourth in the final state rankings, entered the night averaging 59 points per game. But Kickapoo limited them to just five points in the first quarter and led by as many as six points in the first half.
A 3-pointer just before the buzzer gave Lee’s Summit West a 22-21 halftime lead, though.
The game was tied at 25 and 27 in the third before Kickapoo senior Trae Oetting hit a 3-pointer and made a free throw for a 31-28 lead. He came up big again in the fourth, scoring eight points and making three-straight field goals at one point to make it a 39-33 game.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Kickapoo led 42-35 after senior Harrison Doenning converted a three-point play with 1:36 remaining, and then junior Drew Atkins added two free throws with 64 seconds left to make it a nine-point game.
The Titans didn’t go down without a fight. Chaz Watson made back-to-back 3-pointers in a five-second span to get the game within one possession with 50 seconds on the clock.
Kickapoo senior Brayden Shorter answered with a bucket with 40 seconds remaining, then added a free throw eight seconds later to make it 47-41.
Oetting added two more freebies with eight seconds on the clock to help ice it.
Oetting finished with 19 points and Doenning added 13. The Chiefs made 14 of 18 at the free throw line.
