UNIONTOWN — Tanner Davis was hoping Yates Center could right its ship after a slow start Saturday evening.
The Pittsburg-St. Mary’s Colgan defense, however, was there to put several proverbial icebergs in the way.
Yates Center’s dreary first half — the Wildcats trailed 27-5 by the 2:15 mark of the second quarter — was enough to stymie a furious comeback attempt down the stretch.
Colgan’s 51-42 victory in the Class 2A substate championship ends Yates Center’s season with a 19-4 mark, while Colgan advances to the 2A state tournament starting Wednesday in Manhattan.
“The first half just buried us,” Davis said. “We came out and we were tight. We couldn’t get our shots to fall, and they couldn’t miss.”
Especially Simon Higginbotham. The Colgan senior drilled four 3-pointers in the first half, scoring 20 of the Panthers’ first 29 points.
Conversely, Yates Center was stuck in neutral.
Colgan led 13-3 when the Wildcats’ Aaron King connected on a field goal with 2:15 left in the first quarter. Yates Center didn’t score again until King drilled a 3-pointer with 2:15 left — in the second period. In the interim, Colgan rattled off 14 straight points to effectively put the game away.
That said, the Wildcats didn’t go down quietly.
Colgan’s lead briefly swelled to 36-12 early in the third before the momentum swung in Yates Center’s favor.
King — who averaged 21 points a game this season — scored every Wildcat point in a 13-2 run to pare the lead to 38-25.
It could have been closer, but King’s 3-point attempt with about 40 seconds left in the third rimmed out. Had it fallen, the lead would be have been 10.
Colgan’s methodic offense led to Dominic Piccini tip-in at the buzzer, and the lead was back at 15, 40-25.
Jordan Smith joined the fray in the fourth quarter for Yates Center. He drilled a trio of 3-pointers in the final eight minutes, including one immediately after King’s layup and acrobatic steal on the inbound pass with 1:32 remaining.
And while Colgan sputtered a bit down the stretch, hitting only 5 of 10 free throws and committing three turnovers, the Panther defense was stout enough to keep Yates Center at arm’s length.
The Wildcats drew no closer than eight points in the waning seconds.
“I never doubted our fight,” Davis said. “They could have called it quits, but they came out and fought in the second half.”
King wound up with 23 points, while Smith had 14.
Higginbotham didn’t score again after his blistering start, but still led the Panthers with 20 points. Josh Hayes added eight and Piccini 7.
The loss concluded the high school career of seniors Mikey Bruner, Gavin Dillow and Jon Barnes.
“To have three guys like Michael, Jon and Gavin step up and do what they’ve done for us, next year is going to give us some huge spots to fill. We do bring back some key guys. We’ve just gotta get better. Hopefully, we can make another run at it next year.”
FAMILIAR FACE
It’s not often an assistant high school basketball coach sports his own cheering section, but that was the case for Colgan assistant coach Clint Heffern.
The 2012?????? Iola HIgh graduate and standout athlete is student teaching at St. Mary’s Colgan High School this scbool year and is working under legendary Colgan head coach Wayne Cichon.
Several family and friends ventured to Uniontown, the substate tournament’s host school, to root on Heffern and the Panthers.
Colgan (16-16-8-11—51) (FG/3pt): LIndsey 0-0-1-0, Dickey 2-3-2-7, Buche 0-1-1-1, Hizey 2-0-0-4, S. Higginbotham 4/4-0-0-20, A. Higginbotham 1-0-0-2, Brown 1-0-0-2, Hayes 3-2-1-8, Piccini 2/1-0-3-7. TOTALS: 15/5-6-8-51.
Yates Center (5-7-13-17—42) (FG/3pt): Nolan 0-0-1-0, Splechter 0-0-1-0, Dillow 0-0-1-0, Bruner 0-0-2-0, J. King 0-1-1-1, Forsyth 1-2-2-4, Smith 1/ 4-0-3-11, A. King 10/1-0-1-23. TOTALS: 12/5-3-14-42.
