03-14-14
BY JACK BULLOCK
PEORIA – Most good coaches know that to be successful you must go with your strengths and the Nashville Hornets have done just that in their state tournament run.

Coach Brad Weathers “tall timber” of a starting line up proved to be “too tall of an order” for Petersburg PORTA on Friday night in the 2A state semifinals.

Getting the ball inside and crashing the boards against the smaller Bluejays, Nashville overpowered the Birds, 62-43 to move into Saturday night’s state title game.

After losing their last five games at Carver Arena, the Hornets broke the losing streak with a big second quarter run and pulled away to improve to 27-7 on the season and are a win away from its first boy’s state basketball title since 1978.

Six-foot-six senior center Clint Johannes dominated in the paint for the Hornets, scoring a 20-points and hauling down 11-rebounds as Nashville was never threatened after halftime.

Johannes hit 8-of-13 shots from the field (Nashville was 25-of-57 overall) in leading the way to the victory.

Royce Newman, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, also got the job done in the lane as he added 14-points seven rebounds for Coach Weathers.

Senior guard Keegan Anderson added 12-points for Nashville.

“We were able to get out and use our length against their shooters. They’re a pretty prolific scoring team and we knew that coming in. We were really concerned because we’re much bigger but not nearly as fleet of foot. I thought our defense came through for us tonight,” said Coach Weathers. “We did crash the offensive boards pretty good. There were several times when our bigs got a piece if it and got two or three shots and we finished most of them.”

Petersburg failed the make and dents in the Hornets defensive armor as the fell into the third place game on Saturday night.

Nic Sinclair topped the Jays with 15-points but no other PORTA player hit for double-figures in the loss that dropped Coach Nick Rathgeb’s team to 26-6 on the season.

The Bluejays, trying to attack the Hornets zone defense, found the shooting tough and offensive rebounds scarce.

Nashville out-rebounded PORTA, 38-32 but it is a bit deceiving in the fact that the Bluejays managed just three first half offensive boards.

Coach Rathgeb saw his club take a brief 9-7 lead in the final minutes of the first quarter but then allowed a game-changing run by the Hornets.

Nashville scored the game’s next 17-points and took control of the game.

Six-foot-seven junior Dylan Mueller scored his only two points of the game to trigger the run and Anderson followed that score up with a rebound basket and the Hornets went to the first quarter break up 11-9.

PORTA proceeded to play perhaps its worst quarter of the season.

Hitting just 1-of-11 shots from the field and committing five turnovers, the Bluejays were in trouble.

“Take away the second quarter and I thought we played a very good ball game. There length across the front of the zone started to affect us a little bit and we backed off a little bit rather than keep taking it to them. It’s hard to try and simulate the length in practice,” said Coach Rathgeb. “We put our tallest kids across there and after 6-4 it drops off pretty quick. We had our longest kids our there in practice to get an idea of what it would like but until you see that length up close it’s hard to imagine what it is really like.”

Johannes and Newman powered inside for ten of the points for Nashville in the second quarter.

Each hit a free throw and each hit two other shots in the lane.

Hunter Beetley stepped off the bench for Nashville and nailed a big 3-pointer that forced a PORTA timeout at 22-9 with 3:10 left.

Despite missing eight shots in the second quarter the Hornets led 26-11 at intermission.

“That second quarter was key. We held them to two points. They missed some shots they may normally hit but I think our defense had something to do with that,” added Coach Weathers. “We’re always looking inside first. Tonight we had such a size advantage we were able to pass over the top more easily than we would have over a bigger team.”

Nashville pulled away in the middle part of the third quarter with the same formula as they used in the first half.

An 11-3 sprint with a pair rebound baskets by Kyle Jasper and Beetley (three-point play) pushed the Nashville lead to 41-20 at the 3:02 mark.

PORTA’s best run was a 7-0 burst to close the third frame.

Sinclair hit a pair of free throws, which was followed by a rebound basket by Mitch Muller, and a free throw by Michael McCurdy closed the quarter at 45-29.

Newman and Johannes combined for a 9-2 run to begin the fourth quarter that took care of the outcome.

Newman cashed in a conventional three-point play and when he added two more free throws with 6:24 to go, “the fat lady was tuning up” at 54-31.

Reserves played the last 2:47 of the contest as Nashville moved into the title game against Bloomington Central Catholic, who topped Providence St. Mel 51-45 in the other semifinal.

PORTA finished 14-of-47 from the field and had 13-turnovers in the loss and they will play St. Mel on Saturday night in the third place game.

“We are one of the last two teams in our class that will be playing one more time this season. So overall we have to be pretty happy with where we have gotten. We played many teams this season who were bigger than us and we were able to compete with them. We just have to keep our heads up and say we’ve had a pretty darn good year,” finalized Coach Rathgeb.