Tigers slay Knights, find title contest

~ Central posted a 67-51 victory over Farmington to reach Thursday's final.

Central junior Darnell Wilks provided the entertainment for a raucous home crowd with four monstrous dunks in Tuesday's Class 5 District 1 semifinal against Farmington, and his teammates helped provide the win as the Tigers sprinted by the Black Knights 67-51.

Central will play Poplar Bluff at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday in the championship.

Wilks started his highlight reel night with a gravity-defying alley-oop slam off a pass from Jajuan Bell less than 2 minutes into the game. The pass appeared to be several feet behind the 6-foot-8 Wilks, but somehow Wilks was able to grab it with one hand and slam it down.

"He just came out of nowhere," Central coach Derek McCord said.

Added teammate Jeremy Kimble: "It was a pretty nice pass. There's none better than that [dunk]."

Between the dunks, Wilks and Kimble were dominating the boards, senior David Deisher was sacrificing his body and scoring down low, and senior reserve Garrett Ozbun was having perhaps his best game of the season.

Thanks to six points apiece from Wilks and Deisher the Tigers led 20-9 after one quarter. Midway through the second quarter Central had already increased its lead to 31-11, and the Tigers led 41-20 at the half.

"We talked about trying to speed up the tempo," McCord said. "We knew they had won 16 of 19 games, and most of those were in the 50s.

"We wanted to try to get a lead early on them, try to get them playing fast. I thought we had a lot of intensity and got a lot of turnovers that started transition."

Central led by as many as 25 points early in the third quarter, and maintained a double-digit lead throughout the rest of the game. Wilks added three dunks in the third quarter.

Overall, Wilks finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.

"He was able to get some alley-oops early which got our crowd going, and that picked up our defensive intensity," McCord said. "He's so unselfish. He made some tremendous passes. He doesn't have to score to make an impact."

Kimble finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds for the Tigers. Deisher added 10 points.

Kimble said rebounding is his first priority on the court.

"Rebounding, basically that's it," he said. "I don't care about points. I had 10 or 11 [rebounds] tonight, that's all I care about."

Ozbun added 10 points off the bench for Central. Eight of those points came with Deisher on the bench with foul trouble in the second quarter.

"I thought Garrett Ozbun really played hard that second quarter," McCord said.

This will be the first district championship appearance for the Tigers since 2003. Central has not won a district title since 1997.

"We have to step it up big and come out strong like we did tonight," Kimble said.

In Central's way is top-seeded Poplar Bluff, the two-time defending state champion. The Mules knocked off No. 4 Jackson in the other semifinal. Central had a lead heading into the fourth quarter at Poplar Bluff earlier this season, but could not hold on.

"We'll have a monumental task on Thursday," McCord said. "They have two of the best shooters in our league in Allan Spencer and Ben Hansbrough. We came out and played them well the first time."

Central 67, Farmington 51

Farmington 9 11 15 16 -- 51

Central 20 21 16 10 -- 67

FARMINGTON (51) -- Travis Ribbing 10, Matt Usherwood 10, Dwayne Glaspy 8, Deon Glaspy 8, Travis Massie 4, Parks Peterson 3, Marcus McDaniel 2, Collin Berry 1. FG 18, FT 14-27, F 17 (3-pointers: D. Glaspy 1. Fouled out: Peterson)

CENTRAL (67) -- Darnell Wilks 18, Jeremy Kimble 12, David Deisher 10, Garrett Ozbun 10, William Zickfield 4, Adrian Cox 7, Jajuan Bell 2, Jared Thomas 2. FG 30, FT 6-14, F 24 (3-pointers: Cox 1. Fouled out: Deisher)