Campus, El Dorado boys upset top two seeds in El Dorado tournament
As the Nos. 7 and 8 seeds, the El Dorado and Campus boys entered the El Dorado midseason tournament with identical 1-8 records. The likelihood of them meeting in Saturday’s seventh-place game was high.
However, after Thursday’s first-round games, that’s now an impossibility. Campus upset top-seeded Collegiate with a 48-47 win, and El Dorado followed by beating Circle 70-60.
“Coming in, we needed a win really bad,” said El Dorado senior Kaden Fowler, who had 14 points. “Our coach preached energy. We came out just rolling. The energy was great. Everything clicked. Big fan base. It was hype from the beginning.”
Campus senior Chace Howard, who had eight points and eight rebounds, added: “It’s really big. (Collegiate) is one of the top-ranked teams in 3A, and it’s a big deal to pull off the upset.”
El Dorado (2-8) will play Trinity Academy (5-6) in Friday’s semifinal at 6:15 p.m., and Campus (2-8) will play Kapaun (6-4) at 7:45.
“Our whole deal coming into the game was to be engaged for 32 minutes,” Campus coach Chris Davis said. “We were engaged for about 28.… We just hung in there, gutted it out, made enough plays to survive.”
Campus raced to a 9-0 lead, getting baskets from four players, including a three by Noah Moody. Collegiate finally scored with 1:40 to go in the first period on one of Jack Larsen’s five three-pointers. He scored a game-high 16 points.
But Collegiate shot poorly as a team —18 of 47 from the field, 6 of 25 from three-point range — and had 18 turnovers. Collegiate thrives on its pressure defense, but its difficulty scoring nullified its opportunities to press.
While Campus took its biggest lead at 48-36 when Demetrius Schley hit a three with 4:47 to go, that’s also when everything fell apart. In the final 4:27, the Colts had eight turnovers — two offensive fouls and a 10-second call — and didn’t score again.
“You just hope you can make one more play, make one more play and survive,” Davis said. “And we did.”
Collegiate’s Austin Waddell made three straight baskets to get within 48-42 with 3:24 to go. Cameron Christian made a three-pointer and had a chance to tie, but after making one free throw in the final 1:06, he missed the second.
Collegiate turned it over on a travel with four seconds remaining.
El Dorado was already pumped for its game with Circle, its primary rival. But watching Campus’ upset heightened the energy.
“Our coach talked about that,” Fowler said. “… All right, we’re about to go out there and do the same thing.”
El Dorado, which shot 23 of 46 from the field, opened with an 8-2 run, and then after Circle tied it at 10-all, answered with a 10-2 run.
“Tonight our lid finally came off the basket,” El Dorado coach Jordan Regehr said. “…We battled. We handled Circle’s run. We came down and executed. We didn’t let the moment get too big.”
Circle made a run on the backs of senior Cameron Parr and junior Cal Hartley. Each made two fourth-quarter three-pointers, and Hartley had 12 of his 21 points in the period.
El Dorado didn’t flinch at the run. The Wildcats made 10 of 12 free throws and all eight field goals in the final period. Freshman Jarin Koehler scored 14 of his team-high 17 points in the period.
“We weren’t going to lack energy, but the focus was the part I was worried about,” Regehr said. “The focus in the second half, especially to do what we needed to do, was great.”
Trinity Academy 59, Newton 38 — The sign that Trinity Academy’s offense was headed for a fine night came early. Senior forward Mitchell List scored the first five points, including a three-pointer.
Trinity (5-6) had a 10-0 lead before Newton (4-6) scored with 2:57 to go in the first period.
Trinity made 21 of 40 shots from the field and 8 of 18 from three-point range in its best offensive showing of the season.
List finished with 14 points and four three-pointers. Drew Thornton also had 14, while Jarrett Counts had 11 points and eight rebounds and Luke Prohaska scored 10 and had seven rebounds.
Kapaun 67, Great Bend 61 – Brock Monty scored 22 points, making 10 of 16 shots, to help the Crusaders into the semifinals.
Kapaun shot 53 percent from the field to overcome a 9-of-23 performance at the free-throw line.
Kody Crosby led Great Bend with 24 points.
Kapaun | 18 | 18 | 19 | 12 | — | 67 |
Great Bend | 12 | 19 | 15 | 15 | — | 61 |
Kapaun — B. Monty 22, C. Meitzner 8, M. Hutton 8, C. Oatsdean 7, T. Wells 7, C. Edmiston 7, M. Woodward 6, S. Lett 2
Great Bend — K. Crosby 24, B. Smith 12, J. Murray 10, T. Ibarra 9, T. Esfeld 6
Trinity Academy | 17 | 16 | 12 | 14 | — | 59 |
Newton | 7 | 11 | 10 | 10 | — | 38 |
Trinity Academy — Thornton 14, Adler 6, Counts 11, List 14, Prohaska 10, Newport 2, Floyd 2.
Newton — Berry 9, Ahrens 14, VAldez 2, McKinney 2, Peterson 2, Kelley 4, Veenstra 2, Schroeder 3.
Campus | 14 | 14 | 15 | 5 | — | 48 |
Collegiate | 11 | 9 | 14 | 13 | — | 47 |
Campus — Moody 7, Manuel 2, Howard 8, Leeper 6, Schley 7, Binkley 12, Kahmann 6.
Collegiate — Christian 10, McNerney 6, Newlin 4, Larsen 16, Adams 2, Waddell 9.
El Dorado | 13 | 12 | 17 | 28 | — | 70 |
Circle | 10 | 11 | 14 | 25 | — | 60 |
El Dorado — Michaelis 4, Burnett 12, K. Koehler 6, Fowler 14, Kimble 7, J. Koehler 17, Johnson 6, McCarthy 4.
Circle — Hartley 21, Eastridge 5, Parr 14, Horyna 12, Straw 1, Walthers 3, Scharenberg 2, Jernigan 2.
This story was originally published January 21, 2016 at 10:55 PM with the headline "Campus, El Dorado boys upset top two seeds in El Dorado tournament."