Mooseheart ends Harvest's season; Westminster rolls
It took Harvest Christian an entire half to finally settle in during Tuesday's Class 1A Mooseheart regional boys basketball semifinal against the host Ramblers.
Such a sluggish start proved far too difficult to overcome as the Lions' season came to an end after a 78-65 loss.
"They were so tight in the first half," Lions' coach Scott Cork said of his team. "They beat us by 20 or something at the beginning of the year and they thought they'd see the 7-foot guys and when they didn't, their mindset changed. But, their mental toughness went away when they got on the floor and saw quickness that we haven't seen in a couple games and that kind of scared us."
Mooseheart (18-10), the defending Class 1A state champion, jumped ahead 5-0 and never trailed. Noah Fox's 3-pointer pulled the Lions to within 10-7 with 2:09 left in the first quarter but the Ramblers ended the quarter on a 9-0 run to pull ahead, 19-7.
The Ramblers dominated the second quarter to take a big, 44-21 lead at the half, but the Lions didn't stop fighting.
"They realized that they can play with anybody," Cork said. "The halftime speech was that we don't have a 20-point play so let's break it down and get it close at the end of the third (quarter) and then get after it in the fourth quarter. They saw the light and went after it."
The Ramblers went ahead by as many as 26 points midway through the third quarter, but the Lions kept chipping away, getting it down to 18 on Zach Floyd's 3-pointer in the quarter's final minute.
Such a large deficit proved insurmountable though. The Lions finally cut the deficit in half on Chad Jakel's jumper just before the game ended.
"We just came out in the second half and said, 'This is it, this is all we've got,' " Fox said. "We tried to come out hard and get back in it."
It was the final game for Fox, who scored 19 points, and fellow senior Austin White, who had 8.
"The whole season went way better than I thought," White said. "In all honesty, I didn't think we'd win 10 games and here are with 16 wins and such a young team. The future is bright."
That future includes Floyd, who's a freshman, and sophomore Riley Steiner, among others. Steiner and Floyd each scored 10 points.
"The next 3 to 4 years are going to be tremendous," Cork said. "We had three freshmen and a sophomore on the floor at the same time (on Tuesday). Our upside is tremendous and people better look out because we're going to be coming after them."
Hameed Odunewu led four Ramblers in double figures with 23 points. Ceda Makindu added 15, Josh Gordon had 13 and Ramiro Sanchez chipped in with 12.
The Ramblers will face Westminster Christian in Friday's regional title game.
The Warriors were able to outrun Islamic Foundation in Tuesday's first semifinal, 77-51.
"We thought there were some things that we could take advantage of from Islamic Foundation," Westminster Christian coach Bruce Firchau said. "That was to get down the court quickly and I thought we did a good job of that."
The Warriors jumped to a big, 41-24 lead at the half and victory was never in doubt.
Sam Carani led the way with 23 points while fellow senior Robert Kleczynski added 14 points.
"Defensively, we weren't as good as I want us to be," Firchau said. "But Islamic Foundation did some nice things knocking down some 3-pointers, but overall we played well on both ends of the court."