By Jordan Burton
Webb City, Mo. — For one half, Walnut Grove didn’t look like the team that many have pegged as the favorite to win the Class 1 state championship.
The Tigers led a scrappy Montrose team 38-32 at the half.
While Walnut Grove went on to win the game Tuesday’s Sectional game at Webb City, 69-51, coach Darin Meinders made it very clear that his team’s performance wasn’t good enough.
“For me it’s more about the effort that we put out and I don’t think we played with enough intensity and the effort we normally play with and need to play with to be successful,” said Meinders. “We didn’t shoot it well but I was more upset about our defensive intensity and effort. A lot of that blame goes on me; as a coach I didn’t have my guys ready to play tonight. That’s on me. We’ve got to be a lot better. I don’t know what we shot tonight, but it wasn’t very good.”
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A 14-4 run to start the second half extended Grove’s lead from 52-36 and allowed the Tigers to coast through the remainder of the game. But, Montrose senior Gage Thompson scored 17 of his game-high 31 points in the second half, further adding to Meinders’ frustration.
Surprisingly, that total is one less than his season average…
“I still don’t think we guarded very well in the second half,” said Meinders. “He’s a very good player, but our defensive effort was poor tonight and that’s not a knock on them because they played hard. They played harder than we did. We can’t think that we’re going to play for a state championship if we let teams play harder than us and that’s what we discussed in the locker room.”
On a night where junior Logan Thomazin didn’t shoot the ball very well, he still managed to score a team-high 22 points, 17 of which came in the first half, and the majority of which came via dribble drives.
“He’s gotten a lot better at attacking the basket,” said Meinders.
Senior Jaron Dishman scored 14 points, giving Walnut Grove a post presence on both ends of the floor. Sophomore Ryan Keith and junior Hunter Gilkey added 12 and 11, respectively.
Meinders clearly wasn’t happy, but all things considered, life is still good.
His Tigers have now won nine straight entering Saturday’s quarterfinal showdown with rival Hermitage. The Hornets topped Green Ridge 69-53 on Tuesday.
Walnut Grove hasn’t lost a game to a Class 1 team in nearly a calendar year and the Tigers beat Hermitage twice during the regular season. In fact, Hermitage hasn’t beaten Walnut Grove in program history.
Meinders believes that it is ultimately on him to have his team mentally ready to play moving forward.
“That’s on me as a coach and we’ve got to be better prepared,” said Meinders. “As much as I got on to them afterwards and discussed all the things we could have done better, on the bright side we still won by 20 and we still survived and advanced, which is what you want to do. Nothing is easy in the postseason and we know that.”
Walnut Grove and Hermitage will tip off at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 4, at Clinton High School with a Final Four berth on the line.
Walnut Grove 69, Montrose 51
Montrose 20-12-6-13 – 51
Walnut Grove 22-16-14-17 – 69
Montrose (20-8): Thompson 31, Rohans 8, Steward 6, Swaters 5, Hanlin 1.
Walnut Grove (27-3): Thomazin 22, Dishman 14, R. Keith 12, Gilkey 11, Meinders 7, K. Keith 2, Countryman 1.
