Woodland falls to Dexter in overtime in semifinal of SCAA Tournament

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- Woodland's Garret Reynolds had a couple thoughts racing through his mind as he dribbled the ball down the court, looking to extend his team's lead with less than a minute remaining against Dexter.

"In that situation I just knew I needed to go down, get an open look, take a good shot, hit it and get back on defense," Reynolds said.

The task seemed simple enough for the Cardinals and Reynolds, who knocked down a jumper just inside the arc to give his team a three-point lead with 51 seconds.

However, following a Dexter timeout, the Bearcats inbounded the ball at half court and ran a perfect play, which left Dexter's Ethan Flowers wide-open for a 3.

The junior didn't hesitate to take the game-tying shot, which hit nothing but net and tied the game.

It ultimately led to a 72-65 overtime win for third-seeded Dexter over second-seeded Woodland.

"It was clutch. That was the most clutch shot we've had all year," Dexter coach Josh Dowdy said. "Ethan Flowers is one of those kids that comes in and spends all the time in the world on that gun. He'll make 60 to 70 out of 100 and does that daily for the most part. That's why he made that shot. He deserved to make that shot because he puts in the time. So we ran a little double staggered for him, and he came off of it, got his feet set and it went through the bottom of the net."

Reynolds had a chance at a game-winning shot that he threw up as the buzzer sounded, but it hit the rim and bounced out, forcing overtime.

In the final four-minute period, Dexter scored all 14 of its points from the charity stripe and shot 87 percent (14 of 16) to come away with the win.

"Once they go that lead we felt like we had to foul to stay in it," Reynolds said. "That was key for them though, they knew it was coming. They had naturally good guards who could just keep swinging the ball around without turning it over, so we had to foul them. The only problem was that they were already in the double bonus and they hit their free throws. You've just got to give it to them. They hit shots when they needed to and we didn't."

The Cardinals only scored seven points in overtime, and shot just 28 percent from the field (2 of 7).

Dowdy said he instructed his players to make the Woodland players come get the ball and wait for a foul once they grabbed a lead.

"I just felt like we spread them out a little bit and made them come get us," Dowdy said. "We got the lead there and I think we attacked them a little bit better too, in overtime. Against there traps we were looking more diagonal instead of getting caught up in the coffin corners. And of course, we just didn't miss many free throws. In fact all of our points come off of free throws in the overtime. That was the difference in the end."

Dexter made 24 of 31 free throws (77 percent), while Woodland only took eight trips to the line and made five total free throws in the game.

After trailing 26-24 at halftime, Woodland stayed within two points of Dexter until midway through the third.

Woodland grabbed a 37-36 lead when Reynolds hit a 3-pointer with 2:30 left in the third, but the Cardinals could not stop Dexter, which scored seven unanswered points to take a 45-37 lead heading into the fourth.

"The third quarter was just that bad quarter for us," Reynolds said. "You try not to have those and we knew we had to come out with intensity, we just didn't for the entire eight minutes. They came out and that's where they wanted to win that game. Thankfully we stuck with them for a final quarter, but they nearly put us away there."

After falling behind 51-40, its largest deficit of the game, Woodland bounced back and scored the next 10 points to cut the lead to 51-50 with 3:59 to play. Michael McCormick had two 3's during that stretch and Zach Beel and Devon Gramlisch each put in layups.

After being fouled on the Bearcats' next possession, Jason Jarrell hit two free throws to put his team in front by three.

Reynolds drove to the basket on Woodland's next possession and drew a foul with 3:22 left. He hit both of his free throws to make it 53-52, and after Beel came up with a big block, he found Reynolds at the other end for a wide-open jump shot at the top right corner of the key.

"We did feel like coming in we wanted those bigs to come out and guard our guards. We felt like we could take them off the dribble, and it worked pretty well the first half," Dowdy said. "And then coach [Logan] Nutt did a good job of switching into some traps and it caused us some problems, which is how they came back."

Beel had back-to-back blocks on Dexter's next possession. Woodland was able to corral his second block and found the Cardinals' center for an easy layup to give them a 56-53 lead.

Dexter's Austin Chesser drew a foul at the other end and hit both shots on a one-and-one with 59 seconds to go, setting up the scene for the final minute of the game.

Woodland led 13-5 four minutes into the game.

However, four straight turnovers by the Cardinals allowed the Bearcats to get within three, and Flowers then hit his first 3 of the game with 35 seconds remaining in the first to tie the game at 13-13

A 9-4 run to start the second helped Dexter get past Woodland to take a 24-17 lead, its first of the game, with 3:31 left in the first half.

But the Cardinals responded with a 7-2 run in the final three minutes. Reynolds had three points during that span, including his layup with .7 seconds remaining, which rolled off the glass and in the basket to bring the Cardinals within two at the break.

Reynolds and Beel each finished with 20 points to lead the Cardinals, while McCormack added 15.

Jarrell had a game-high 26 points for Dexter.

The Bearcats will play top-seeded Bernie in the championship at 8:30 p.m. today.

Woodland falls to the third-place game and will take on No. 5 Bloomfield at 5:30 p.m.

"We're just going to have to come back stronger and better than ever," Beel said. "Obviously we'd like to be playing for the championship and not third place, but we'll go out and give a full effort and hopefully come away with something good to take away from this tournament."

Dexter 13 13 19 13 14 -- 72

Woodland 13 11 13 21 7 -- 65

DEXTER (72) -- Jason Jarrell 26, Ethan Flowers 14, Jacob Pedigo 12, Austin Cheeser 12, Peyton Pollock 6, Noah Kronk 2. FG 22, FT 24-31, F 14 (3-pointers: Flowers 3, Pedigo 1. Fouled out: none.)

WOODLAND (65) -- Garret Reynolds 20, Zach Beel 20, Michael McCormick 15, Cole Schlief 7, Devon Gramlisch 3. FG 26, FT 5-8, F 17 (3-pointers: Reynolds 3, McCormick 3, Schlief 1, Beel 1. Fouled out: Reynolds, Beel.)