By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Springfield Catholic clamped down on the defensive end and C J Kendall scored the game winner with 1.8 seconds remaining as the Fightin’ Irish downed El Dorado Springs 47-44 on Saturday night in the Gem City Classic championship at Diamond.
The Irish improved to 3-0 after knocking off the host Wildcats 74-27 and Mt. Vernon 68-40 in tournament action.
“We turned them over,” Catholic head coach Jay Osborne said. “I think they had six turnovers in that fourth quarter. We turned them over a few times. I thought defensively we were really good tonight. We held a pretty good offensive team, a two-headed monster there, to 40 which is pretty good. We just couldn’t make shots. We missed a ton of wide open 3’s, missed a bunch of free throws, but we found a way to win. Really proud of our guys.”
The late turnovers were crucial for Catholic, which trailed for a majority of the game, though never by much. The Irish were down 23-20 at halftime and 34-31 after three quarters.
The Bulldogs (2-1) still led by four with less than five minutes to play after free throws by Karson Burley made it 38-34. El Dorado Springs didn’t score for nearly four minutes after those freebies, though, and committed four turnovers during the drought.
The Irish pulled closer on a bucket by Jacob Schultze and then took the lead with 4:07 remaining thanks to a basket and free throw by Rian Mulherin that made it 39-38. Schultze added a layup at the 3:07 mark to make it a three-point game.
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The Bulldogs finally answered with a free throw from Landon Murry and retook the lead on a three-point play from Murry with a minute remaining.
Schultze knocked down three free throws to give Catholic a 44-42 lead, but Murry answered with two of his own to tie it again with 21 seconds left.
In the final seconds, Schultze caught the ball near the paint, jumped and passed over several defenders to find Kendall underneath for the go-ahead basket. Kendall added a free throw after the Bulldogs threw a pass out of bounds.
The Irish made 6 of 9 free throws in the final eight minutes, and 9 of 14 in the game. Schultze scored 14 of his game-high 22 points in the second half, including nine in the final frame.
“Whether you’re making shots or not, defense is going to win you these games,” Osborne said. “I’m happy for our defense. We had a couple guards tonight, (Brett) Roberson and (Ryder) Rowden who I thought guarded extremely well. Stayed out of foul trouble. They didn’t reach and they made it hard for them to get to the rim most of the night. I’m really happy with our defense. We haven’t spent as much time on it as we need to at practice. It’s a good team effort and it’s still early in the year; we can make a lot of mistakes right now and we have a lot of things to clean up. We’ve got a chance to have a good season, really positive.”
Schultze was the only scorer in double figures for the Irish. Rowden and Mulherin each scored eight points, Roberson had four, Kendall had three and Carter Webster scored two.
Murry led El Dorado Springs with 19 points, including eight in the fourth quarter, and Joe Gordon scored 11. Rees McCullough scored six and Russell Furgeson and Darrin Burchett each had four. The Bulldogs made 9 of 17 free throws in the game.
