3A boys: Garden Plain falls in third-place game to SE-Saline

Visiting with a handful of Garden Plain supporters following Saturday’s Class 3A boys third-place game, Owl coach Lee Gillen pointed to his locker room in the Sports Arena.

“That’s a good group in there,” Gillen said.

At the beginning of the season, Gillen had no idea how good his team would be. With three varsity players back from a year ago, he admitted to being concerned.

Instead, he watched Garden Plain check off one goal after another. And though the season ended with a 48-44 loss to Southeast-Saline in the third-place contest, Gillen couldn’t have been any prouder of his team’s accomplishments, both this week and throughout the year.

“To accomplish all they did is a tribute to them,” Gillen said, noting the Owls captured its first Central Plains League title in 11 years and won its first state tournament game since 1999. “I thought our kids played hard and that’s all we could ask of them.”

Getting down early in each of its first two 3A tournament games, Garden Plain instead played from ahead at the start of Saturday’s title. Zach May opened the game with a three-pointer and the Owls put together a 9-3 run spanning the first and second quarters to take a 14-9 lead over the Trojans a minute and a half into the second quarter.

But after making six of its first 14 shots, Garden Plain fell into the same shooting funk that hampered the Owls in their semifinal loss to Sabetha. Garden Plain made six more baskets the rest of the game, finishing 12 of 37 overall and 5 of 21 from three-point range.

Despite the shooting woes, Garden Plain was not only in the game, but up 32-20 after another May three-pointer with 2:51 left in the third quarter. The Owls only made one more shot the rest of the game, however, yet after SE-Saline finished the third quarter on a 7-0 run, the Trojans couldn’t put the Owls away.

Alex Becker’s two free throws with 2:15 left made it a 43-42 game and then Luke Heimerman answered a pair of Easton Montgomery free throws with a driving layup with 46 seconds left to kept the deficit at one. The Owls got a chance to tie when Jackson Montgomery made just 1 of 2 free throws with 19 seconds to go, but Alex Mannebach missed a pair of free throws with 8.7 seconds left and SE-Saline sealed it with two more Easton Montgomery free throws.

“We had chances,” Gillen said. “But we just couldn’t get it done.”

Becker scored 15 points and May added 12 as Garden Plain exceeded expectations, going 20-5.

“The key to this team is they’re a tight group of kids,” Gillen said. “They’ll play for each other. I thought if we could get some kids to come around we could have a decent year. It turned out to be a great year.”

Easton Montgomery led SE-Saline (22-4) with 26 points and 12 rebounds.

Osage City 56, Sabetha 49 – Powered by 27 points and nine rebounds from Duncan Fort and some big shots early by his supporting cast, Osage City captured its first state title since 2000. The Indians fell down early, but got three-pointers in the first quarter from Kaleb Irvin, Tyson Wilkins and Jason Cooley to storm back. Then Fort took over, scoring 21 points in the final three quarters, a three-point play on a late dunk punctuating the performance.

This story was originally published March 12, 2016 at 8:11 PM with the headline "3A boys: Garden Plain falls in third-place game to SE-Saline."