POPLAR BLUFF - A veteran East Carter County team showed the youthful Advance Hornets what it take to win in the playoffs with a 67-55 victory in the Class 2, District 2 championship game here at the Black River Coliseum Friday night.
The win marks the second straight year that the Redbirds have defeated the Hornets in the district championship game. After last season1s district win, East Carter went on to breeze past the best class 2 teams in the state on their way to a state championship.
"It was a struggle," East Carter coach Larry Morgan said after the win.
"We knew that Advance would come out and play hard. They have a bunch of good young kids and Jim Hall is as good a coach as there is in the country.
"We knew they were going to make some runs at us and they made a run at the first part of the ballgame," Morgan continued. "But I have a bunch of kids that will step up to the task and they did. They rose up and tied it up and had a good second quarter to sort of get it back on our side of the table.
"Anytime you play for first place in the district you hope to have a good game and that's what we had tonight."
After battling to a 19-all tie and the end of the first quarter, East Carter would go on a 10-2 run (29-21) to start the second and force Advance to call a time out. Tyler Bowman (nine points) answered for Advance, but a stretch of cold shooting followed and the Redbirds were able to add eight points to the lead, 37-23.
A 21-8 second quarter advantage for East Carter left Advance trailing 40-27 at the intermission and the scoring drought by the Hornets proved to be the difference in the game.
"We played the state champs to basically a dead even game with the exception of about six minutes in the second quarter," Advance coach Jim Hall said.
"We're 13 down at the half. We're seven down late in the fourth quarter when we have to start fouling when they went to the delay game early.
"Like they said it was eyeball-to-eyeball, head-to-head and I couldn't be more pleased with the effort they (his players) gave," Hall continued.
"The only thing that disappointed me is that we didn't shoot the ball well from outside. They can't stop our man offense and they go to the zone and I thought we would eat them up. My good shooters got all kinds of good shots against the zone we just couldn't knock it down. If we hit the threes, we're celebrating tonight."
The intensity level of both teams was sky high to start the game and Rylan Dunivan wasted little time before draining a 3-pointer to open the game's scoring for Advance. The Hornets would ride their emotions to a 11-4 lead on another basket by Dunivan before the Redbirds would start to peck their way back.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by David Reynolds, who finished with a game-high 23 points, would tie the score at 17-all. The furious pace of the first quarter ended with the teams tied at 19 and players and fans alike were able to pause and take in a deep breath.