SCAA: Puxico holds off pesky Bloomfield for shot at long-awaited title

BLOOMFIELD – After being extremely disappointed with his team’s overall effort in its opening win in the Stoddard County Athletic Association Boy’s Basketball Tournament, third-year Puxico coach Bryant Fernetti was much happier following its next game.

The top-seed Indians held off a stiff challenge from Bloomfield on Thursday in the championship semifinal and prevailed 70-59.

“We played harder from the start,” Fernetti said. “We’re still not doing a great job of rebounding or keeping the ball in front of us (though).”

Puxico, which is ranked No. 8 in Class 2, improved to 15-1 with the victory, but never truly had the Wildcats (7-9) put to rest until the end.

“(Bloomfield) switched up defenses quite a bit,” Fernetti said, “so, we had to adjust on the fly.”

The Wildcats had the game tied early in the second quarter before Puxico got offense from five different players in the second quarter to stretch its margin to 46-30 at halftime.

“We did something that is hard,” first-year Bloomfield coach Ben Sindle said of hanging with the Indians. “Puxico is a good team.”

The depth of Puxico, even as it didn’t play junior forward Kaysen Long for the night, proved a challenge for Bloomfield, which used just its starting five throughout all 32 minutes.

“They have seven kids who can all shoot,” Sindle said, “and they are physical down low, too.”

Puxico still led by eight early in the final period and the free throw shooting of senior forward Thomas Burch, who sank five of his six free throws for the game, all in the final period, kept the Wildcats at bay.

“A lot of times,” Fernetti said of his offense, “we have guys who can go make a play. So, if (Bloomfield) switched defenses, we get into a motion game when all else fails, and they do a pretty good job of making plays out of that.”

No Indian is better at making something out of nothing than sophomore guard Landan Burchard.

He paced his team with 18 points while Burch (13 points) and sophomore guard Jett Hancock (12 points) also contributed.

“Puxico is a hard team to scout,” Sindle said. “But our guys were working.”

Bloomfield got a solid effort out of senior guard Ayden Hutchison, who had 15 points, including eight in the second quarter, as he valiantly tried to keep his team within striking distance.

The Wildcats also got a game-high 19 points from senior post Lucas Dowdy while junior Caleb Upchurch added 11 points.

Bloomfield moved on to face Woodland (10-4) in the third-place game today at 5:30 p.m.

The Cardinals fell to Richland (Essex) 65-63.

Puxico advances to the championship game today at 8:30 p.m. where it will play Richland (Essex) (14-4).

The Rebels survived in the final moments against Woodland 65-63 in the other championship semifinal on Thursday.

The Indians have not played for a SCAA Tournament championship since 2008 when it fell to Bell City 62-32. They haven’t won the event since beating Bell City 74-69 in 1984.