By Chris Parker
Hartville’s boys basketball team found itself in familiar territory on Wednesday at Mizzou Arena playing in a state semifinal for the fourth time in the past five years.
The first two trips ended in championships, while last season’s appearance saw the Eagles fall to eventual state champion Salisbury in the semifinal round.
It was a disappointment the Eagles did not want to repeat.
“We talked about at the beginning of the year how disappointing the end of last year’s season was,” Hartville senior Grant Culver said. “We knew that whenever we came back here this year that we wanted to play for that championship and win the whole thing. That has been our goal the whole year.”
The Eagles are one step closer to their ultimate goal after beating South Pemiscot 44-27 on Wednesday.
Hartville’s plan of attack against South Pemiscot took a quarter to really get going, but once it did the Eagles got rolling fast.
The first quarter was tight throughout with Hartville taking an 11-10 lead after the first eight minutes. Six of South Pemiscot’s 10 points came from beyond the arc on two-for-two shooting from three.
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“It took us a little while to get going offensively. That’s a credit to South Pemiscot. They have a lot of length and really get after you and pressure you. They made it tough on us early on,” Hartville head coach Brett Reed said. “We made them shoot it from the perimeter, which was kind of the game plan going in.”
The plan of forcing South Pemiscot shoot threes while denying around the basket worked to perfection for Hartville the rest of the game, as the Bulldogs went 1-for-10 from beyond the arc in the final three quarters.
“We just (wanted to) clog gaps and make it tough for them to score on the interior,” Reed said. “We still wanted to contest outside shots, but we wanted them to shoot those types of shots. They don’t shoot a lot of threes and when they do their percentages weren’t extremely great. That was the game plan.”
Hartville was also dominant on the glass out-rebounding South Pemiscot 34-15 while pulling down 10 offensive rebounds of its own.
Payton Cogdill led all scorers with 11 points. Jalon Cryer and Jackson Ward each scored 10 points for Hartville. Culver pulled down 12 rebounds to lead Hartville in that category.
Hartville advances to face the winner of Weaubleau and Salisbury in the Class 2 state championship game at 6 pm on Thursday at Mizzou Arena in Columbia.
