OFC Tournament: Bears earn shot to defend title

DONIPHAN — The top-seeded Greenville Bears moved on to the championship game of the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament with an 85-63 victory over the Clearwater Tigers Tuesday night at Wright Gymnasium.

“We came out and executed our game plan and knocked out shots,” said Greenville head coach Nathan Walk. “It’s always good when you get a chance to play for a trophy.”

Greenville (13-6) jumped out to an early 6-1 lead in the first four minutes of the game until a Clearwater 3-pointer cut the Bears’ lead to 6-4.

The Tigers (9-14) wouldn’t get any closer for the rest of the half. A triple from Greenville’s Easton Evans extended the Bears’ lead to 16-8 with less than 30 seconds in the first, but a Clearwater layup ended the period at 16-10.

The Bears ran away with the second quarter, outscoring the Tigers 21-10 to take control of the game. Greenville opened the period with a 6-0 run. Trey Porter came up with key rebounds to deny the Tigers many second shots, and the Greenville lead was 27-13 with 3:30 remaining in the half.

Greenville dominated both ends of the court for the rest of the second, taking a 37-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Clearwater hit a 3-pointer to open the second half, and although the third quarter scoring was much closer, with Greenville only holding a 23-20 advantage, the Bears still led by 20 points, 60-40, going into the final period.

The catalyst on offense in the third quarter for Greenville was Porter, who was an unstoppable force in the paint, scoring 11 points in the third and 25 for the game. Bears’ teammate Evans had 23 points for the game.

Clearwater’s Charles Robbins led all scorers with a game-high 28 points.

Clearwater ran a full-court press defense to open the fourth quarter, but the Tigers couldn’t stop Greenville’s offense, which speed-rushed the press and found open men under the basket for easy layups.

The Tigers’ press did result in two turnovers and four points, but that was with two minutes remaining, and it only cut the Bears’ lead to 79-58. Greenville led fourth quarter scoring 25-23.

Next up for Greenville is the OFC Tournament championship game at 8:30 p.m. Friday at the Libla Family Sports Complex on the campus of Three Rivers College.

“This is the one that want everybody wants,” Walk said. “This was one of our goals at the beginning the season, and we’ve put ourselves in position to make that happen.”