The Scott Community High School boys take pride in their defense.
They had reason to after holding Ulysses scoreless from the field in the fourth quarter on their way to a 53-40 Great Western Activities Conference win on Friday.
The Beavers (5-1, 3-0) survived a pair of buzzer-beaters, including a desperation three-pointer at the end of the third period, to gain control of the GWAC title race with a big road win.
“It was a gut-check to come back and play well at the end,” says head coach Glenn O’Neil after Ulysses in-bounded the ball with 9/10 of a second remaining in the third quarter and launched a 35-footer that hit nothing but net to cut the SCHS lead to 37-35. Moments earlier the Tigers also took advantage of a loose ball in their end of the court that rolled into the corner where they were able to drill a three-pointer.
However, the Beavers never lost their composure.
“Like Brett (O’Neil) said in the huddle after their buzzer-beater, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s play ball,’” says the head coach.
And Scott City responded as one would expect from a defending state champion. Senior guard Braeden Robinson opened the final period with a steal and layup that extended Scott City’s lead to four points. Ulysses followed with two of their five fourth quarter free throws - their only scoring of the quarter. Drew Kite answered with a basket and Trey O’Neil added a three-pointer at the 6:21 mark that had the freshman pumping his fist with excitement.
The younger O’Neil added two free throws and Drew Kite’s turnaround jumper over Ulysses’ Garrett Kissell, who had picked up his fourth foul moments earlier, began to quiet the Tiger fans. Senior guard Brett O’Neil was then on the receiving end of a long pass that resulted in a fastbreak layup with only 1:25 remaining in the game that put Scott City on top 51-38.
Ulysses finally ended a four minute scoring drought with just over a minute left in the game when they collected two more free throws.
“We pride ourselves on our defense,” says O’Neil. “We haven’t played great defense as much as we’d like up to this point of the season, but when we’ve had to we’ve played pretty well.”
Scott City had to step up its defense as their offense tried to gain its footing.
“Defensively, as the game went along, we figured out what we needed to do to stop them,” says junior guard Tyler Hess. “We were able to disrupt their offense.”
In fact, if not for a couple of desperation shots to end the second and third quarters, along with a fortunate bounce that led to another three-pointer, it could have easily been a 20-point win for the Beavers.
Scott City’s biggest deficit was 16-11 early in the second period. A last-second shot at halftime gave the Tigers a 20-19 edge.
Hess Hits 2 Treys
Hess continues to gain confidence with his perimeter game, drilling a pair of three-pointers. His second trey of the night put Scott City back on top, 29-27, with 4:33 left in the third quarter and the Beavers never trailed again.
Ulysses tied the game briefly at 29-29, but Drew Kite answered with a basket, Joey Meyer followed with a free throw and B. O’Neil drove the lane to give SCHS a 34-29 advantage.
Hess’s growing confidence with his outside game has come at a time when the Beavers have needed more scoring from the perimeter.
“I’ve been playing guard more in practice so I figured I might as well start shooting,” says Hess.” It’s been going pretty good in practice so coach told me the other day to start shooting more so I hit a three against Hugoton and a couple more tonight and it’s feeling pretty good.”
At the same time, Hess and his teammates have seen Kite emerge as a major offensive force, including 22 points and 15 rebounds on Friday.
He is currently averaging 15 points and eight rebounds per game.
“We started getting the ball into Drew and he became the centerpiece of our offense,” says Hess.
The Beavers were wanting to establish an inside attack and possibly get Tigers center Garrett Kissell in foul trouble.
“Joey (Meyer) and I were able to do that. When Kissell was on the bench I was able to take it to the basket against a smaller post,” says Kite.
Though he did plenty of damage while Kissell was in the game as well. He had 10 points by halftime and scored five of the team’s first seven points of the second half to keep pace with the Tigers.
Kite credits Meyer with preparing him to play against a taller post player such as the 6 foot-6 inch Kissell.
“It helps so much in practice when I’m playing against Joey. He jumps higher than me, so it forces me to learn how to shoot over someone like that,” Kite says. “After playing against Joey all the time it’s not near as tough going up against someone like Kissell.”
O’Neil acknowledges that Kite is playing with a lot of confidence.
“He’s working hard in practice and our boys are trying to get the ball to him deep (in the post),” O’Neil says. “That’s what we told the boys early on, get the ball down low to Drew and see if we can get Garrett on the bench.”
Junior guard B. O’Neil, who had been struggling on offense, was back in double figures for the first time since the second game of the season. He finished with 10 points, including a three-point play with 3.5 seconds left in the third period that put his team on top, 37-32.
He was 4-of-6 from the field.
Led by Kite’s 10-of-16 performance from the field, the Beavers hit 56 percent (15-of-27) from two-point range and 39 percent (5-of-13) from beyond the three-point arc.