Woodland and Bernie advance on day two of SCAA Tourny

Day 2 of the Stoddard County Tournament saw the fifth-seeded Woodland Cardinals knock off No. 4 Puxico Indians 94-83.

Woodland jumped out to a 9-3 lead before Puxico found their footing offensively. Puxico went on a 10-0 run before Lane VanGennip broke the streak with a jumper followed by a pair of free throws to even the score at 13.

The teams exchange buckets to finish off the quarter with Puxico having the 16-15 advantage. After a furious exchange of baskets, the score was knotted at 27 halfway through the second quarter.

Woodland then took control with a 10-3 run to take a 37-30 lead at the break.

Woodland coach Shawn Kinder talked about the Cardinals offensive play.

“We did (shoot well) at times, at time I felt like we tried to do too much off the dribble,” said Kinder. “I feel like when we got good spacing on the floor and moved it (the ball) good things happened.”

Woodland came out of the break with the hot hand. The Cardinals extended their run starting the third quarter with a 5-0 run extending the lead to 42-30. Puxico's Cole Barnfield sank a 3-point bucket to stop the run. However, after the teams exchanged treys, the Cardinals went on a 10-0 run.to take a 55-36 lead.

Puxico, down 85-68 with just over three minutes left in the fourth, hit a trey and a quick jump shot to trim the lead to 85-73. This forced a Woodland timeout. Woodland's VanGennip hit a layup after the timeout to try and break any momentum Puxico was building.

But Puxico kept fighting with a quick bucket followed by a trey from Duncan Crabb cut the lead to 87-78. Woodland's Karsyn Hastings sank a pair of free throws to stretch the lead back to double digits at 89-78 as Woodland held on.

Next up for Woodland will be top-seeded Dexter Thursday evening.

“We will have to play every part of the game very well if not to our best to play with Dexter,” said Kinder about the matchup with Dexter. “They are a great team. Coach (Chad) Allen and his crew does a great job with those kids. I'm just hoping we show up and compete that night.”

VanGennip lead the way for Woodland with 32 points, Jarid Frymire had 18, Breyden Hastings added16 and Reed Layton had 15. For Puxico Duncan Crabb led with 26 points, Cole Barnfield and Thomas Burch each had 12 and Trevor Fornter added 10.

Bernie 85, Bloomfield 56

A scrappy Bloomfield team gave third-seeded Bernie all they could handle in the first half before the Mules pulled away in the second half for an 85-56 victory.

“Bloomfield played really well. They made shot after shot after shot that first half,” said Bernie coach Jason Long. “We needed to do a better job of not giving them so many scoring opportunities, that was the message at halftime.”

Hunter Corzine accounted for Bernie's first seven points as he dropped a trey and two jump shots from inside. Bernie also saw treys from Triston Johnson, Tucker Anthony and Landon Ellsworth as part of a 3-point barrage in the first quarter. Bloomfield's Matt Sanders answered with 11 of his team high 15 points in the first quarter. Bernie only led 25-23 after one quarter.

It looked like Bernie might pull away in the second quarter after Ellsworth and Johnson each netted a 3-pointer. Bernie took a 39-30 late in the quarter. But Bloomfield answered back again, cutting the lead to 39-34. At this point Bloomfield's James Barks sank a jump shot. Lucas Dowdy followed this with a layup and was fouled in the process. Dowdy sank the free throw and the game was tied again at 39. Johnson knocked down a jumper for Bernie and the Mules took at 41-39 lead into the locker room.

“They (Bloomfield) burned the nets up,” said Long. “They really played well and I knew they were going to.”

Bernie opened the second half with a 9-5 run to stretch the lead to 50-44. From there an 11-4 run made it a 61-48 advantage for the Mules after three quarters. Bernie maintained control through the fourth quarter to secure the victory.

Long spoke about the outside shooting by Bernie Tuesday evening.

“We need to shoot well because we are so small, we shot it ok in the first half too,” said Long. “We shot it well pretty well the whole night. That is something we have to do offensively. Offensively we have got to be good, we have to play off two feet, use head fakes, have good shooting form, try to get offensive rebounds and do everything we can because we are so stinking small.”

Next up for Bernie will be the second-seeded Advance Hornets. Bernie dropped a 74-70 decision at Advance on Jan. 6.

“We are going to have to play really well. Advance is really good, I think they only have two loses on the year. I know they have 15, 16 wins, maybe more than that, they are really good,” said Long. “It will be a huge challenge for us. We just need to worry about doing the best we can every day. We played pretty well the last time we played them and they still got us. It's the kind of game you want to play against a really good, really solid team.”

Triston Johnson lead Bernie with a game-high 37 points, Landon Ellsworth dropped in 15, Hunter Corzine had 14 and Micha Schooley had 12.

Bloomfield was lead by Matt Sanders with 15 points, Lucas Dowdy had 13 and Caleb Upchurch scored 11.

Junior varsity

In the semifinals Thursday evening the sixth-seeded Richland Rebels will face No. 2 Woodland. Richland upset No. 3 seed Dexter in the first round, while Woodland defeated Bloomfield.

In the other semifinal, No. 4 seed Bell City, who defeated Advance, is still awaiting an opponent. The first-round game between Puxico and Bernie was postponed Tuesday due to inclement weather. No makeup date has been decided.