Scott County Central boys upend Leopold in district final

~ four-time defending state champion SCC upsets Leopold in district final

MORLEY, Mo. -- The Scott County Central boys basketball team knows better than most that it's all about how you finish.

"We came real far," Braves junior Larandis Banks said. "We started from the bottom. Now we're here."

"Here" is standing with another district championship trophy and a chance to win a fifth consecutive Class 1 title.

The No. 3 seed and host Braves upset No. 1 Leopold 64-58 Friday night for the Class 1 District 2 crown.

Leopold’s Kyle Stroder, left, and Cameron Davis watch a shot from Scott County Central in the final minute of the fourth quarter Friday night.

While it's hard to imagine the four-time defending champs starting at "the bottom," as Banks put it, the Braves struggled throughout the season. They have lost 13 games while winning 15.

"We came out early on and we took a lot of shots from a lot of people," SCC coach Frank Staple said. "The kids just had to understand that we're going to get the best out of everybody every game. I think we got a little down on ourselves, but as the season went along, especially these last two or three weeks, we just started coming together. It went from being a little crazy to more positive and positive and positive."

This script is a familiar one for SCC, which played the role of underdog for much of the postseason a year ago, although not during district play.

Friday night's game didn't get off to an ideal start either for SCC.

Leopold, ranked No. 2 in the MBCA/MOsports.com poll, forced turnovers on the Braves' first two possessions and scored both times for a 4-0 lead, which forced Staple to take a timeout 30 seconds into the game.

Leopold’s Andy McWilliams dives over Scott County Central’s Jeffery Porter in an attempt to gain control of the ball in the fourth quarter of Friday night’s Class 1 District 2 title game.

"I think it was just big-game jitters," Staple said. "We just kind of had to settle in. We just told the kids to just settle down, settle down, settle down.

"We knew if we could just come out and withstand that initial punch and make that first push, and then we'd be all right."

SCC turned the ball over eight times during the opening quarter and made just three of its 16 shots from the floor. Leopold mostly controlled the play but built only a 12-8 lead in the period. The Wildcats got plenty of the inside looks they wanted in the period but made just five of 18 shots and missed seven of the nine free throw attempts they earned inside.

"That was our plan," Leopold coach Andy Beck said. "We knew we had the size advantage, but we didn't know that we wouldn't be able to make a layup all night. We had the shots inside all night long. They couldn't fall.

"We got them out of the offense, we got numerous put-back opportunities, and that was something we harped on them -- we got to get the boards and we got to get to the rim. The shots just weren't falling. Not much we could do about that."

The second quarter featured four ties as the teams traded baskets before Leopold moved ahead 25-23 at halftime.

Leopold, a team that thrived throughout the regular season on outside shooting, made just one of six 3-point attempts in the first half. Although the Wildcats wanted to get the ball inside, Beck acknowledged the Braves' defense also limited his team's outside attempts throughout the game.

"We just kind of extended our zone out," Staple said. "We just worked on that the last couple days, and it even helped getting that extra day to practice with the weather. We knew we had to take away the shooters. We had to make it tough around the perimeter, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that."

Banks broke a 25-25 deadlock on a 3-pointer with about five minutes left in the the third quarter to put SCC ahead for good. The Braves later went on a 6-0 run that ended with a basket from senior Tyler Masters with 2 minutes, 54 seconds left in the third quarter. The run gave SCC a 36-29 lead and, while Leopold pulled within a single bucket numerous times, it never caught the Braves.

"It's just again about just slowing down," Staple said. We had to make sure we had the right guys in the right spots. Tyler Masters was huge for us tonight. We told him we'll have somebody in the high post, just be ready down low. He did that. He was ready."

Masters finished with 15 points, but it was Banks who tortured Leopold. Banks scored SCC's first 10 points to steady the Braves and finished with 27 points.

"He's huge, and he's been here before," Staple said. "He was a starter last year on the state championship team, so he and Jaylen [Porter] have the most experience. Larandis is just a kid -- he's not going to lay down. He's going to keep fighting. That's what we told him to do, just take us by the hand and we're going to follow you."

It was SCC that earned more inside looks as the game progressed. At one point in the fourth quarter the Braves scored inside on four of five possessions -- Banks missed two free throws earned with a drive to the basket on the fifth -- to help extend their lead.

"I think we let them get easy penetration," Leopold senior Kyle Stroder said. "That got them easy shots inside. That's what they live on. They live on offensive rebounds, and they play with a lot of energy, and we just let it get out of hand."

Stroder finished his four-year varsity career with a 26-point performance in a game where the Braves had their sights set on stopping him.

"We had to keep a hold of Stroder because he can shoot the ball, he can drive, he can do anything," Masters said. "We watched him a lot. We wouldn't worry about the other players. We just checked them and stuff, but [the] person that we wanted to check was Stroder."

Stroder was one of seven seniors who helped Leopold win a school-record 24 games to just three losses, but the Wildcats fell short of their goal of bringing home the school's first district title.

"There's not much you can say after that," Beck said. "That group of seniors, they don't want to think about it now, but they had a heck of a year. They had the best year in Leopold history. That's something they can still be proud of. They don't want to hear that right now. There wasn't a whole lot to say. You tell them you love them. You tell them they did a good job and went down swinging. It just wasn't meant to be."

After the game, Stroder was as poised and composed as he plays during the game. He admitted he and his teammates had cried and said it was hard to believe it was all over, but his first thought was to thank the fans for coming, and to say he had fun with his friends and learned a lot from his coaches.

"I think we just weren't aggressive enough," he said. "I think we were ready tonight, but we just didn't execute well enough. They deserved to win."

Scott County 8 15 15 26 -- 64

Leopold 12 13 11 22 -- 58

SCOTT COUNTY CENTRAL (64) -- LaRandis Banks 27, Jaylen Porter 1, Tyler Masters 15, Matthew Blissett 3, Kendall Blissett 11, Jeffery Porter 7. FG 21, FT 19-28, F 17. (3-pointers: Banks 3. Fouled out: none)

LEOPOLD (58) -- Austin Bucher 3, DJ Keim 4, Kyle Stroder 26, Andrew McWilliams 4, Cameron Davis 17, Brandon Jansen 5. FG 23, FT 10-19, F 16. (3-pointers: Stroder 4, Davis 1. Fouled out: Keim)