Dexter rolls into finals of SCAA Tournament

sports@standard-democrat.com

DEXTER -- For the third straight year Dexter and Bernie will square off for the Stoddard County Activities Association Tournament championship.

Shortly after the Mules upset Advance 62-54 Thursday evening in the semifinals, the defending champion Dexter Bearcats took to their home floor to set up the rematch with a 71-59 win over the Bloomfield Wildcats.

"We played pretty good offensively," Dexter coach Rob Nichols said. "I don't think we had a whole lot of turnovers and we shot the ball well.

"I didn't think we were real strong defensively. That's something the last couple of games we haven't done very well, we haven't guarded very well."

Whatever problems the Bearcats' defense had in the first three quarters was quickly forgotten when, with the help of some Bloomfield turnovers, Dexter rallied for 10-straight points early in the final frame.

Shortly after Zach Pounds opened the fourth with a basket under the rim to close the Wildcats to within seven, at 50-43, Brad Potts scored in the paint off a pass from Chase Young to kickstart the Bearcats rally.

With a missed a missed shot and turnover on their next two possessions, Bloomfield watched as a 3-pointer from Young, followed by a Jordan Fitts' layup extended Dexter's lead to 14.

Capping the rally after a Wildcats timeout, Jake Lee hit both his shot and ensuing free after getting fouled in the paint with 5:49 to play. Lee's free throw left the Bearcats with their biggest lead of the night at 60-43.

"It was actually our defense that got that," Nichols said of the run. "We got a couple of stops and turnovers and then went down and got easy baskets.

"With us it starts with defense and we have to get back to being a defensive-minded team."

Though back-to-back baskets by Adam Vandiver closed Bloomfield back to within 13 points just seconds later, an 8-0 run by Dexter soon after eventually allowed the Bearcats to pull away by as many as 16 points in the final minutes of the contest.

"We just kind of ran out of steam a little bit here and there," Bloomfield coach Jason Karnes said. "They made some shots, stepped up and made some free throws. Most of the night we just couldn't keep them in front of us."

Down by only three points, at 15-12, after the first quarter, Bloomfield found themselves trailing by 10 at the break thanks in large part to 14-point second frame effort by Miller.

Miller converted on four shots from behind the arc in a six minute span while scoring the final five points of the half to give Dexter a 39-29 advantage going into the locker room.

"They went to that zone and we've played pretty well against the zone this year," Nichols said of the second frame. "We shot the ball well. Tyler hit 4 big 3's there in that second quarter and got us some momentum going into the second half."

With a game-high 23 points, Jake Lee connected on 5 of 11 shots from the floor to lead the Bearcats while grabbing a team-high 12 rebounds. Lee was also helped by a strong night at the free throw line, converting on 13 of 18 attempts.

As a team Dexter went 21 of 31 from the charity stripe for a 67.7 percent rate while hitting on 21 of 51 shots from the field (51.2 percent).

Young was second on the squad with 17 points while Miller finished with 15 points on 5 of 9 shooting, converting 4 of seven shots from behind the arc.

For Bloomfield, Adam Vandiver had a team-high 16 points while Pounds and Brett Ruch contributed 13 and 11 to the Wildcats' cause respectively.

On Vandiver's play, Karnes said, "He had a couple of tough ones tonight that I thought were down, but just didn't go down for him.

"But the last three for four games he's started to turn around a little bit and getting more production for us."

With the win, Dexter will play Bernie for the title tonight at 8:30 at the Bearcat Event Center. In last year's title game, it was the Bearcats pulling out a 56-49 win to avenge a 47-46 loss to the Mules the year before.

"We expect a tough hard fought game," Nichols said. "You have to play well to beat those guys and they'll have a great game plan. We'll just have to play well. It's probably the (championship) game that most people wanted to see."

Dexter 15 24 11 21 - 71

Bloomfield 12 17 12 18 - 59

DEXTER (71) -- Chase Young 17, Tyler Miller 15, Jordan Fitts 9, D.J. Dowdy 1, Brad Potts 4, Jake Lee 23, Cody Neldon 2. FG 21, FT 21-31, F 10. (3-pointers: Young 4, Miller 4. Fouled out: none.)

BLOOMFIELD (59) -- Caleb Baker 5, Brett Ruch 13, Logan Cowart 11, Thomas Sanders 2, Zach Pounds 12, Adam Vandiver 16. FG 27, FT 1-4, F 18. (3-pointers: Cowart 2, Ruch 1, Baker 1. Fouled out: Pounds.)

Bernie 62, Advance 54

DEXTER -- Led by 22 points from David Baker, the Bernie Mules held off a late push by Advance for a 62-54 win in the semifinals.

Leading by eight with just over a minute left, the Mules saw the Hornets force two straight turnovers on Bernie possessions to close to within four in the final minute of play.

Forced to foul while missing several key shots, however, the Hornets couldn't catch up as the the Mules held on for the win.

Behind Baker, Matt Eaves had 16 points for Bernie while the Hornets got a game-high 23 points from Lane Below and 14 from Ethan Barr.

On the junior varsity side of the tournament, Bernie defeated Dexter 55-43 and Advance took down Puxico 63-49 to advance to the championship game

Advance 17 11 12 14 - 54

Bernie 15 14 13 20 - 62

ADVANCE (54) -- Tyler Middleton 2, Hunter Wilson 8, Lane Below 23, Trey Wallace 5, Curtis Gilliland 2, Ethan Barr 14. FG 23, FT FT 5-7, F 21. (3-pointers: Below 2, Wallace 1. Fouled out: none.)

BERNIE (62) -- Jake Wagner 1, Landon Woods 7, Matt Eaves 16, Bubby Schwent 8, Bryce Rodgers 4, David Baker 22, Sam Turner 4. FG 24, FT 14-28, F 8. (3-pointers: none. Fouled out: none.)