Woodland coach wants more despite road rout of Meadow Heights

PATTON – If you want evidence of why it won’t be easy to face the Woodland High School boy’s basketball squad in the ever-nearing MSHSAA State Tournament, there is the fact that the Cardinals are seven points shy of having won 10 consecutive games, or that Woodland is 16-5 overall, but it is mostly this: After beating a solid Meadow Heights team in Patton on Monday 89-67, third-year Cardinal coach Shawn Kinder spent several minutes in the hallway with his coaching staff dissecting all that his team did WRONG in the road rout.

“Maybe I need to be paying attention to details more,” Kinder said. “It seemed like when (Meadow Heights) was switching things up, we didn’t adjust very well.”

The people who filled the Panther gymnasium probably couldn’t tell that by watching the scoreboard.

The Cardinals raced out to a 23-15 lead after the opening period with a balanced offense (six players contributed offensively), before scoring more points in the second quarter (29) than the Panthers were able to (28) in the opening half.

“In the first half,” second-year Panther coach Mitch Nanney said, “we just didn’t match their intensity and the effort that they played with. They played quicker than we did and we never did rise to that level.”

The Panthers (8-9) began to click following halftime, as they scored 22 points in the third quarter behind 11 points from senior Ransom Grindstaff. However, the margin was too big at that point to overcome.

“In the second half,” Nanney continued, “we played at a better level, and then we competed and stayed in it. But you can’t spot a good team 20 points.”

Monday’s margin was a tad surprising, because these two teams played to a 71-67 Cardinal win in December in the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament. Kinder said his team did do some things much better (and his team was healthier on Monday) than in the earlier meeting.

“In the Christmas Tournament,” Kinder said, “we had a lot of guys out. We weren’t attacking. We were passive.

“Meadow Heights, around Christmas time, they were hitting shots, making plays, and they had guys attacking the basket.”

This season has been one of “woulda, coulda, shoulda” for the Panthers in some regards. Meadow Heights has lost six games by single digits.

“The thing that has hurt us all year is defensive rebounding,” Nanney said. “We’ve gotten hurt on the boards by bigger teams throughout the year and let some games slip away.”

Panther senior Jayden Burr had a nice outing, despite the loss. He finished with 11 points while junior Braeden Hays hit all 10 of his free throw attempts and totaled 17 points.

Grindstaff matched Hays’ 17 points to help his team.

The Cardinals got 19 points from senior guard Reed Layton while senior Brayden Hastings had a team-high 23 points.

Woodland junior Lane Lee (nine points), sophomores Korbin Kinder (17 points), and Calvin Layton (eight points) were also productive.

The Cardinals will travel to Delta (5-13) today at 7:30 p.m.

Meadow Heights will visit Oak Ridge (11-8) today at 7:30 p.m.