The Rolla High School boys’ basketball team has been looking for a spark all season long.
The Bulldogs gave themselves one in the second half on Senior Night.
Rolla used a big third quarter and a stingy second-half zone defense to throttle the high-powered Springfield Parkview attack and pull out a 69-66 Ozark Conference overtime victory on Bulldog Senior Night Tuesday at the RHS gym.
It was the first time all season that Rolla has won back-to-back games. Rolla improves to 8-12 overall and 2-3 in the league. The Vikings were searching for their 20th win on Tuesday. Instead they went home 19-4 and 4-2.
The result snapped a six-game winning streak for the Vikings. Parkview’s only other conference defeat was to Springfield Hillcrest on Dec. 18.
“That was a win over a high-quality team,” said RHS head coach Mark Miller. “It’s one of those deals where we haven’t won two in a row this season. It’s nice to go back-to-back, especially against a very good team.”
For a while it appeared a RHS victory was a long shot on a night to honor Bulldog senior players Andy Giger and Brendon Dowdy. Rolla never led in regulation and the Vikings held as much as a 15-point bulge.
A free throw by guard Alex Poke with 2:19 left in the first half gave the Vikings a 13-point lead, 43-30. Rolla cut its deficit to nine but a tip-in with :02 left by 6-1 junior Jordan Hitchcock gave Parkview a 47-36 halftime edge.
Parkview opened up the second half with back-to-back baskets, and a layup by 6-2 senior Diondre Johnson gave the Vikings their largest advantage of the game, 51-36.
Miller then switched to one of his “junk” defenses and suddenly the momentum turned.
“We went with a 1-3 zone (defense) in the first half,” Miller said. “In the second half we went to a 1-1-3 zone. I don’t know why it stymied them so much.”
But it did and RHS stormed back into contention with a 13-4 run. A three-pointer off the right baseline by 6-1 sophomore Jay Zalis with 2:45 remaining cut the Bulldog deficit to four, 53-49. And a layup by 6-3 sophomore Keegan Garner with :49 left brought Rolla to within a point, 55-54.
Parkview netted the final basket of the third period to cling to a 57-54 edge entering the fourth quarter.
Neither team did much at all offensively over the fourth quarter, as Rolla outscored Parkview 6-3 in the period.
With 3:30 left while holding a two-point lead Parkview went into a delay game, working more than a minute off the game clock. However, Bulldog sophomore guard Mike Miller made a steal, was fouled and hit both ends of a one-and-one to tie the game at 60 with 2:20 remaining.
Again Parkview went into the delay game. The Vikings worked the clock down to :11 before calling a time out to work for the final shot. Parkview worked the ball to Poke, who was fouled in the lane with one second remaining. Rolla called time out to freeze Poke and it worked. He missed both free throws, with Dowdy rebounding the second miss and Rolla called time out with :0.6 of a second remaining. Zalis took the inbound pass at midcourt and heaved up a shot, which grazed off the front of the rim before bounding away, forcing overtime.
Dowdy was fouled to open the overtime period and hit one-of-two free throws, giving Rolla its first lead of the evening. Rolla got the offensive rebound after Dowdy’s missed free throw and that led to a reverse layup by Miller with 3:33 left, making it 63-60.
After the two squads exchanged layups Johnson scored on a put-back to cut the Rolla edge to 65-64 with 1:42 left.
Zalis was fouled and hit two free throws with :53 left to again make it a three-point game. After Johnson missed a shot with 30 seconds left Dowdy rebounded and was fouled, with the beefy Johnson fouling out. Dowdy hit one-of-two free throws with :27 remaining to make it 68-64.
The Vikings came up court and Hitchcock missed a 10-footer in the lane and again Rolla rebounded. Dowdy was again sent to the foul line with :17 left. He again hit one-of-two, giving Rolla a 69-64 edge.
Poke streaked up court and hit an uncontested layup with :12 left to cut the RHS lead to three and the Vikings immediately called time out.
On the inbounds play Dowdy was fouled away from the ball with :10 left. He missed both free throws and Parkview got the rebound. The Vikings’ 6-1 sophomore Taylor Acord fired up a three-pointer off the right baseline and missed. Parkview retrieved the long rebound and got off another three-pointer off the left baseline and it was also off the mark, giving the Bulldogs the upset win.
“When we went into halftime I felt we had played pretty well,” Mark Miller said. “We told them to just go out, play hard and if they do we’ll have an opportunity. In the second half Parkview struggled with our junk defense. The big key was it’s a lot easier to come back when you’re knocking down shots, and we knocked down some big ones.”
Miller had 20 points and made two steals for the Bulldogs while Dowdy had another double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds and Zalis got 13 points, eight assists and six boards.
Johnson fired in 21 points and 6-4 junior forward Korry Tillery added 15 for Parkview.
The Rolla junior varsity team ran its record to 15-2 by beating Parkview 46-32.
Parkview took a 9-6 lead after the first period and Rolla’s jayvee squad led at halftime 14-13. The jayvee Bulldogs then outscored the Vikings 21-8 in the third quarter to take control.
Andrew Barnes, a 6-5 junior, had 12 points while sophomore David Cox and freshman Michael Janke each had 11 points for the Rolla jayvee squad.
Tuesday began a busy week for the Bulldogs. Rolla is scheduled to play a make-up, non-league game at Union tonight (6 p.m.) before playing league games at Camdenton on Friday and at Joplin on Saturday.
