SC feasts on Tigers to avenge loss

By Rod Haxton, editor

The Scott Community High School boys knew they were a better team than when they lost to Ulysses back in early January . . . but 52 points better?

And while the final point spread may have been a surprise, the end result wasn’t following Scott City’s 78-31 romp on the home floor Tuesday night.

Head coach Glenn O’Neil tried to downplay the final spread.

“There are other circumstances that figure into that. Even if we’d have lost we already knew we had improved our game since the last time we played,” he noted. “It was definitely nice to win the game and see that we’ve improved, too.”

To say the Beavers (11-4, 3-2) are playing better ball would be an understatement.

Junior guard Ron Baker continues to set the pace with another 26 point effort - the fifth time in the past six games that he has topped the 20-point mark. He also had strong support in the low post from Jorden Funk and Austin Davis with 10 and eight points, respectively.

“Jorden and Austin have been real solid in the post, consistently scoring 10 points and getting five or six rebounds per game,” says O’Neil. “And Alex (Swan) had a nice floor game tonight.”

Freshman guard Brett O’Neil came off the bench to give the Beavers another 10 points, including a pair of treys.

With Baker slashing to the basket and both Davis and Funk crashing the boards hard, SCHS was able to draw a number of fouls on the Tigers. They took full advantage of their trips to the charity stripe, connecting on 22-of-24 free throws.

Ulysses (11-5, 4-2) was able to keep pace with the Beavers early, taking a 9-8 lead midway through the opening period. Junior guard Kaleb Roemer drilled a trey at the 3:39 mark that started a 17-1 scoring blitz. O’Neil finished off the run with a fastbreak layup that put SCHS on top, 25-10, and later added a trey for a 30-12 advantage.

Even with a 36-19 halftime lead, O’Neil wanted to make sure his team remembered they were on top of the Tigers by 10 at the break when the two teams met before.

“We talked at halftime about not letting the lead disappear,” O’Neil says.

Not a chance.

Scott City scored the first 16 points of the second half, including a pair of treys by Baker and a trey from sophomore guard Braeden Robinson, to blow the game wide open at 52-19. Ulysses didn’t get their first basket until 5-1/2 minutes into the third period and scored just 13 points the entire second half.

While the Beavers were impressive at the offensive end of the floor, it’s the defense that has been even more solid while winning nine of their past 10 games.

“Defense has been the key to our success,” says Swan. “When you look at some of our games we haven’t even had to run the offense sometimes because the pressure has given us fastbreak baskets. If we can continue to do that, extend the defense and force steals, it will put us in good situations.”

SCHS did an excellent job of taking care of the ball, committing just three first half turnovers.

“When you’re playing a team that likes to pressure you want to attack their press, get some good looks at the basket and not turn the ball over and give them freebies at the other end,” O’Neil adds. “I thought we did a pretty good job of that.”