Rogers Heritage Rallies Past Seneca, Mo.

— Rogers Heritage relies heavily on upperclassmen for its success, but several sophomores came up with big plays to help the top-seeded War Eagles rally for a 62-59 semifinal win over fifth-seeded Seneca, Mo., at the 67th annual Carthage Invitational boys basketball tournament Wednesday.

Sophomore point guard Dane Olsen caused a pair of big turnovers in the final minute and canned two free throws with 13.9 seconds left to set the final score as Seneca (1-1) managed only a long hurried heave at the buzzer.

Heritage (3-1) will now advance to the finals against either Joplin or Springfield (Mo.) Central. The title game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

Julian Jensen, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, got a stickback but couldn’t finish off the three-point play with 29.9 seconds left. Instead, Olsen managed to get a hand on the missed free throw and slapped it off a Seneca player before it went out of bounds to give Heritage the ball back.

The War Eagles ran the inbounds play to perfection out of the timeout, and Connor Hirsh scored for a 60-59 lead, Heritage’s first since 2-0.

Olsen then came up huge a second time by tipping away Seneca’s inbounds pass near midcourt, stealing the ball and drawing a foul in the waning seconds. He then hit two free throws, his only points, to push Heritage’s lead to three with 13.9 seconds left.

Heritage coach Tom Olsen acknowledged sophomores came up big, but he was proud of the way his team hung in, despite not playing its best.

“With Dane, I wish we could find a stat for all the things he does out on the floor,” Tom Olsen said. “All the 50-50 balls he gets. He knocks it off the guy, gets a steal, then makes two free throws. He does so many things that don’t show up in a stat sheet.

“How about Marcus Breedlove in the first half. He hits three 3s and steals it and scores to get us within two at the half. But I thought we had a little better depth. They got in foul trouble and our depth kinda weighed on them a little bit.”

“But our kids showed a lot of character. I don’t want to take anything away from Seneca, but we didn’t play our best. For us to hang in there and win one, I’m proud of them. There’s was a point in the evolution of our program where that would have been a 10- or 15-point loss.”

Hirsh, a 6-2 junior, was active inside and poured in a game-high 21 points, but Crist Olsen added 14 and Breedlove, a 6-1 sophomore, added 11 —all in the first half. Seneca was led by Tyrell Hembree with 19 points, including three 3-pointers. Chance Smith added 15 and Seth Harris chipped in 14, including four 3-pointers.

Seneca had two starters foul out in the fourth quarter and that proved costly, Indians coach Will King said.

“That hurt us at the end, for sure,” King said. “We ran out of steam at the end. We’ve got to get smarter. Give Tom and his group credit. They play hard and get after you. But really there’s three things, turnovers, free throws and rebounds that were key and we came up a little short on those things.”

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