Greenville rallies late for C2D3 W over Puxico

BLOOMFIELD – Greenville High School boy’s basketball coach Nathan Walk serves as the high school/junior high principal for the Bear students, while his Puxico counterpart, Bryant Fernetti, teaches English. Neither is an instructor of psychology, yet both demonstrated on Wednesday that they could if asked to.

The Bears rallied in the second half from a double-digit deficit to overtake the Indians and win their MSHSAA Class 2 District 3 semifinal 53-44 at Bloomfield, and it was obvious for most of the night, that Walk was trying to get into the psyche of his players.

“Obviously,” Walk said of his role as team psychologist, “I didn’t do a very good job.”

The Bears (22-1) had smoked Puxico 64-35 last month in Greenville, but on Wednesday, so Walk’s task was to convince his players that Wednesday’s game would not be a cakewalk like the first outing.

For Fernetti, he had to convince his kids that they actually had a chance to win, and the Indians certainly bought into their coach’s words, because it was the Indians who came out of the gates with fire.

“We knew that the last time that we played them,” second-year Indian coach Bryant Fernetti said, “we knew that we had really struggled, but we knew that we could play better.”

And Puxico did.

The Indians (17-9) scored the game’s first eight points, which caused Walk to call a timeout, and his team didn’t make a shot through the opening 3:26.

“We talk all of the time about focused effort,” Walk said. “We did not have focused effort early.”

Puxico led 14-9 at the end of the opening quarter and stretched that margin to 25-13 midway through the second period when Indian junior guard Jaydon Mitchell hit a cutting teammate for a basket, which was followed by another Bear timeout.

“They came out and tried trapping us a little bit,” Fernetti said, “because that is what hurt us a lot in the last game. We handled it, so then it gave us more driving lanes, more kick-outs, and more lay-ups.”

Puxico still led 31-25 at halftime, but in the second half, Greenville began to play like the team it has shown to be throughout its dominating season.

Though the Bears only scored nine points in the third quarter, their defense limited Puxico to only six over eight minutes.

With 5:18 remaining in the game, Bear senior guard Jeb Huff sank a pair of free throws to tie the game for the first time all night, and Walk’s kids had all the mojo that they would need to close out the game.

“We got down,” Walk said, “and just had to crawl and scratch our way back. I told our players that Puxico was not going to lie down. They are too well-coached. They are not going to lay down and die.”

Puxico didn’t do that, but throughout the second half, it couldn’t finish on decent looks.

Greenville held Puxico to only 13 points post halftime.

“They did a really good job of getting out and guarding us,” Fernetti said, “and pushing us out further off of the 3-point line. We didn’t really adjust very well to that.”

The Indians connected on seven 3-pointers in the game, but only one in the second half.

Meanwhile, Greenville continually rode its mammoth of a post player, 6-foot-3, (guesstimate) 300-pound junior, Trey Porter.

Porter scored on the blocks in every quarter and finished with a team-leading 18 points.

“He likes to get to his left shoulder (on moves),” Fernetti said, “and we let him get there too much.”

Greenville hit 15 free throws in the game, but nine of those came in the final quarter, as the struggling Indians continually had to foul late.

Bear senior Ty Huffmaster had 12 points in the win, while junior Easton Evans added 10.

Puxico got 14 points from junior Thomas Burch and nine from sophomore Skyler Zimmerman.

The Bears, who have never won an MSHSAA District title, will face Advance on Friday in the championship game at 6 p.m.

The Hornets (22-6) got past Oran 54-45 in the other semifinal.