“We’ll always take the tournament victories,” said Shawnee coach Chris McGuire. “Any time you can win a game and move on, that’s always good. You’ve got to take advantage of the good opportunities and we’ve got a good opportunity to (advance to districts) that we haven’t done in awhile.”
Sophomore Zion Crowe scored 21 points, senior Drew Mitch had 13 and senior Jamon Miller and sophomore R.J. Griffin each scored 10 as the Braves improved to 14-3.
Dixie senior Drew Huffman scored a game-high 23 points as the Greyhounds finished their season 5-18.
Huffman scored 10 points in the first eight minutes, giving his team a 14-8 lead. The Braves went on an 8-0 run to take a 16-14 after the first quarter.
“I didn’t call a timeout because I wanted them to play through it a little bit,” McGuire said. “We didn’t play very sharp and we were sloppy defensively and offensively. When we got over there, we told them we had to be solid. We felt like if we were solid, we felt like we would control the game. Definitely in the second half, we were much more solid.”
Shawnee led 34-27 at the half and pulled away in the third quarter. They went on a 12-2 run to start the period, taking a 46-29 lead and forcing a Dixie timeout.
“I was really proud of the way we responded out of the half,” McGuire said. “We’d said the first three minutes we were either going to give them confidence or we were going to put our foot down. We really did a good job of dictating the pace there that third quarter.”
The Braves press caused problems for the Greyhounds, leading to easy buckets in transition. They outscored Dixie 26-6 in the quarter.
“These guys do a pretty good job of being able to put pressure on and get in the passing lane,” McGuire said. “Once we get some confidence out of it, we’re able to put more pressure on them. I thought we did a good job making the right reads and right rotations and that gave us confidence. Once we got some confidence we were able to extend our lead.”
The Braves advanced to face Stivers in a D-III district semifinal game at 8 p.m. Saturday in Vandalia. The Tigers (4-6) beat National Trail 54-40 in the early game on Thursday night. Last year, Stivers advanced to the D-III regional finals before the postseason was abruptly shut down to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shawnee is seeking its first district final appearance since 2015.
“We’ve got to be a lot sharper than this,” McGuire said. “We said that the things that will get you beat are lack of defense and if you can’t take care of the ball. Those are two things early on tonight we were doing. They had all the momentum. Luckily, we were able to get composed and be able to piece it together. We’ve got to do a much better job of taking care of the ball, being strong with the ball and making good decisions with it. … The guys understand that they’ve got to be better than tonight if we want to continue to advance.”
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