Heritage Cruises Into Semifinals

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

— Rogers Heritage was far from perfect in its first-round victory in the 67th annual Carthage Invitational boys basketball tournament Monday night, but even War Eagles coach Tom Olsen praised their defensive effort at the end of the night.

Heritage’s pressure forced 23 turnovers and limited Monett, Mo., to only three field goals in the second and fourth quarters combined in a 58-32 victory.

“I looked up at the end of the third quarter and they had eight points and I said if we give up 32, I’ll be happy,” Olsen said. “Well, we have up 32. For the most part, I was pleased with the defense. They had a couple of spurts where we lost our discipline and created some avenues for them to get to the basket.

“All in all, not bad. We need to play with a little more intensity.”

The top-seeded War Eagles (2-1) now advance to the tournament semifinals at 6 p.m. Friday against fi fthseeded Seneca,Mo. Seneca upset fourth-seed and host Carthage 64-52 earlier Monday evening.

Heritage never trailed in Monday’s game, but also never put away the young Cubs (1-1) until a 9-0 third-quarter spurt put the War Eagles in charge 36-17 with less than two minutes left.

The War Eagles stepped up the full-court pressure in that third quarter as senior guards Crist Olsen and Wyatt Kinnamon got steals, which ended in layups. But Tom Olsen said his team missed some easy opportunities during that span, too.

“When we tried to turn up the pressure a little, we knocked it away three of four times in a row and came up empty,” Olsen said. “I was disappointed we didn’t have a little more fierceness to go stick the ball in the basket and get after them there.”

The senior guards were the only two Heritage players in double fi gures. Olsen led the way with a game-high 17 points, while Kinnamon chipped in 14. Sophomore Marcus Breedlove added nine.

Oftensively, Heritage struggled at times, but hit its fi rst four shots from the fl oor to get off to a quick 10-2 lead. The War Eagles also hit eight of 10 from the fl oor in the fourth quarter, including several layups off Monett turnovers.

Olsen said his team did a better job oftensively in the second half with Monett’s changing defenses.

“They had a pretty good game plan defensively,” Olsen said. “They kept changing things up midstream and our guys got a little complacent I thought trying to fi gure out what they were doing.