Woodland boys basketball team tops Bell City in SCAA tourney first round

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- The Woodland boys basketball team advanced to a semifinal in the Stoddard County Conference Tournament thanks to a strong performance in the fourth quarter against Bell City on Tuesday night.

The two teams stayed within five points of each other through three quarters.

But in the fourth, No. 2 Woodland took over, scoring 16 straight points to regain its final lead of the game and come away with a 65-52 victory over No. 5 Bell City in a first-round game of the SCAA Tournament.

"Our guys never got too flustered, or too frustrated," Woodland coach Logan Nutt said. "We kept our eyes on the common goal that we're working on as a team. We have to make sure we're doing things to improve ourselves to help us in the long run. Those guys just did a great job of never losing focus and they picked it up at the end. We made a lot of hustle plays to help us win this game. Those guys deserve a lot of credit."

The Cardinals led for most of the first quarter, until Bell City junior Nate Finney hit a jumper to tie the game at 10-10 to close the period.

Bell City took its first lead with 3 minutes, 34 seconds to play in the half when sophomore Bobby Wright hit a 3-pointer from the top of the arc.

However, the lead didn't last long for the Cubs, thanks to a strong performance from Woodland's Zach Beel, who scored four straight points in helping the Cardinals to a 31-30 lead at the break.

The Cubs would regain the lead again at the beginning of the third quarter when junior Kolten Siebert scored from beyond the arc to make it 39-37 with 4:53 to go in the third. However, Woodland went on a 7-3 run to close out the third, and never trailed again.

Garret Reynolds finished with 14 points to lead the Cardinals while Beel added 12.

Wright had 14 points and Nate Finney finished with eight for Bell City.

"We've got to give their coaches a lot of credit because they've improved in every single game we've played against them," Nutt said about Bell City. "They threw a defense at us that kind of caught us off guard. It was great experience for us at the same time because we don't see a lot of that style of play that they used on us. They made us really bring it tonight in order to get that win."

Woodland will face third-seeded Dexter in a semifinal at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

Bell City 10 20 12 10 -- 52

Woodland 10 21 13 21 -- 65

BELL CITY (52) -- Bobby Wright 14, Nate Finney 8, Cole Nichols 8, Kolten Siebert 6, Peyton Maddox 6. FG 20, FT 3-9, F 17 (3-pointers: Wright 3, Siebert 2, Nichols 2, Hicks. Fouled out: Finney.)

WOODLAND (65) -- Garret Reynolds 14, Zach Beel 12, Evan Grindstaff 10, Cole Schlief 8, Tyler Womack 6, Landon Johnson 6, Michael McCormick 5, Devon Gramlisch 4. FG 24, FT 11-15, F 13 (3-pointers: Womack 2, Johnson 2. Fouled out: none.)