At one point in the second half of Tuesday night’s game against Mission Valley, Northern Heights boys basketball coach Lanny Massey shouted to his team to not come past the three-point line on defense.
It’s a rare sight to see the Wildcats sit back on defense, as they usually thrive on playing hounding man-to-man defense from baseline to baseline.
But after two and a half quarters of seeing Mission Valley try to physically pound on his team — and after Levi Hizar picked up a technical foul for exchanging words with Aaron Rudeen after a hard foul — Massey decided to put his team in a zone look to refocus his players.
The move worked, as the Heights boys settled down and outscored Mission Valley by 22 in the second half to run away with an 80-42 victory on the second day of the Flint Hills Shootout at White Auditorium.
“I’m not a big zone guy, but I put us into a zone to try to slow things down and try to get the tempers down, because tempers were starting to flare on both sides of the court,” Massey said. “I knew if we could get ourselves level-headed, we would win the ballgame.”
Top-seeded Heights (10-0) led 41-25 at halftime, but five minutes into the third quarter, No. 6-seeded Mission Valley (0-8) was hanging around with the Wildcats, forcing the Wildcats into 10 missed shots compared to just three makes out of the break and never letting the Wildcats get out and run on offense.
Then, with 2:54 left in the quarter, Hizar and Rudeen got in each other’s faces after a foul on Roman Murray, and Hizar was called for a technical foul for something he said.
Rudeen made 1 of 2 free throws to close Heights’ advantage to 49-32.
The Wildcats then switched to their zone look, and over the next 7 1/2 minutes, Heights went on a 20-8 scoring run, which was started by a three-point play by Haydon Parks and capped by a layup by David Hanks with 3:36 left in the game, which made the score 69-40.
“Getting out on that big run helped us put things away,” said Parks, who finished with 18 points and 12 rebounds to lead Heights. “It put (Mission Valley) down and gave us an emotional lift.
“It was pretty rough for a while, but we got it under control towards the end to pull away from them.”
A late flurry of turnovers by Mission Valley — the Vikings finished with 32 giveaways — helped the Wildcats close out the game on an 11-2 run, highlighted by back-to-back-to-back steals and layups, one from Kenneth Bronson and two by Murray.
“We were able to get more people up on the ball than what they had to throw the ball to ... and that got us a few easy steals and a few layups,” Massey said, “and then things kind of flared from there.”
Hizar finished with 16 points and Tyler McClellan had 10 for Heights, while Mission Valley’s Rudeen led all scorers with 20 points.
Heights’ victory earned it a place in Saturday’s first-place game, with the opponent still to be determined. Heights finished 2-0 in pool play and won its two games by a combined score of 161-64.
In the other boys game on Tuesday, No. 2-seeded Osage City defeated fifth-seeded West Franklin, 64-43. The final day of pool play is Friday, with Eureka playing Mission Valley at 4:45 p.m. and Herington meeting West Franklin at 8:15 p.m.
No. Heights boys 80, Mission Valley 42
Flint Hills Shootout
Tuesday at White Auditorium
Mission Valley 10 15 10 7 — 42
No. Heights 23 18 15 24 — 80
Mission Valley (0-8) — Cook 2-6 0-2 5, McClelland 0-8 1-2 1, Branch 3-12 4-6 10, Rudeen 6-18 8-14 20, Zielke 1-3 0-0 2, Konda 0-2 0-0 0, Harris 0-5 0-0 0, Mitchell 0-3 0-0 0, Bozarth 1-1 0-0 2, Fritz 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 14-60 13-24 42.
Northern Heights (10-0) — Bronson 3-7 1-2 8, Symmonds 2-8 1-3 5, McClellan 5-8 0-0 10, Hizar 7-18 1-2 16, Parks 6-12 6-9 18, Murray 4-10 1-2 9, Hanks 4-6 0-0 8, R. Swanson 1-4 4-6 6, Arndt 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 32-73 14-24 80.
3-point goals — MV 1-12 (Cook 1-2, McClelland 0-4, Branch 0-2, Konda 0-1, Harris 0-3), NH 2-10 (Bronson 1-4, McClellan 0-1, Hizar 1-4, Murray 0-1). Rebounds — MV 47 (Rudeen 11), NH 49 (Parks 12). Assists — MV 4 (Cook 2), NH 8 (Bronson, Murray 2). Turnovers — MV 31, NH 18. Total fouls — MV 19, NH 19.
Girls Scores
On the girls side Tuesday, second-seeded Osage City defeated fifth-seeded Eureka, 39-34, and top-seeded Herington beat No. 6-seeded West Franklin 52-38, which put Osage City and Herington into Saturday’s championship game.
Osage City was able to hold off a fourth-quarter rally by Eureka to earn itself a spot in the title game. Eureka outscored Osage City 11-4 in the final period, but it was not enough to overcome a 33-21 deficit at the end of the third quarter.
Kelsey Sturdy led Osage City with 10 points, while Kady Paul had 9. Eureka’s Jana Valentine led all scorers with 12 points.
For Herington, the Lady Railers got a huge game from Crysta Brockmeier, who set a single-game scoring record for the Flint Hills Shootout with a 31-point effort against West Franklin. Brockmeier scored 20 of her team’s 29 points in the first half. Only three other Lady Railers scored.