Boys State Hoops – Day One Notebook

LINCOLN — High Plains coach Cameron Hudson couldn’t quite find the right words to describe Friday morning’s Class D1 semifinals at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

“I guess it’s kind of weird,” Hudson said Thursday night after his Storm advanced with a 60-42 win over Amherst in the first round. “Regardless of who we play the rest of the tournament, we’ll have played them before.”

High Plains (24-2) will play Heartland (22-3) in the second semifinal at 10:45. The opening contest will pit Bruning-Davenport/Shickley (25-3) and Humphrey St. Francis (22-4) who upset top-ranked Clearwater/Orchard, 62-53 on Thursday.

Hudson’s group has played them all.

“I think that is a testament to our schedule and the area we play in,” Hudson said. “You can say the class kind of settled itself out. When we played all of them, we thought they were state tournament teams.”

The Storm broke open a 30-28 halftime game with Amherst with a quick start in the third quarter. They got four points each from Thomas Young and Cole Klingsporn as they moved the lead to 48-38 and then held the Broncos to just four points in the final period.

They had to also figure out how to stop Trey Taubenheim. He’s three-point basket at the first quarter buzzer tied the game and he then scored all 12 of Amherst’s points in the second quarter. He was held to just two points in the second half.

“We adjusted a few matchups,” Hudson said of the Storm’s halftime meeting. “But, I think for the most part we just reinforced the game plan and what we were trying to get done.”

Klingsporn scored 25 points for the Storm, Young added 10, Jabe Wurtz nine and Cale Harless eight as HPC is in the semifinals for the third time in four seasons.

Huskies pull away

They hadn’t won a state tournament basketball game in Henderson since the 1986 Class C2 state championship. Until today. And, it was nearly the same blue print for Heartland as it was High Plains.

“It’s really exciting for our community to get this win and our kids to get to play basketball tomorrow,” HCS coach Clark Ribble said. “I told them we hadn’t been past day one in 29 years and I told our kids that it had to stop today.”

After a 29-29 tie with ninth-ranked Bloomfield in the first half, the Huskies outscored the Bees in the second half 36-17 for a 65-46 win at Lincoln Southeast. Cole Nickels led four Heartland players in double figures with 18 points. Keshawn Camacho and Cody Kroeker had 12 apiece and Tyler Brown had 10.

The Huskies led 18-8 after one quarter, but a Bloomfield switch to zone got them back in the game and it was the focus of Heartland in the second half.

“In the second quarter they switched to zone and we started jacking up threes without getting the ball inside,” Ribble said. “That is all I talked about at halftime — get the ball inside. We did work inside and then our energy and effort started to pick up.”

The Rematch

High Plains beat Heartland 49-48 in Henderson on January 20th when Klingsporn scored on a runner with just inside of 20 seconds left after the Huskies battled back from an 11-point halftime deficit.

Both coaches expect something much the same for brunch.

“High Plains has been here four years in a row,” Ribble said. “We are excited. They beat us in Henderson so we think we might have a little bit to prove against them.”

Hudson knows that dealing with the Huskies physical interior will be a key to the match up.

“They are so good inside,” he said. “It will be a war in the paint. Looking back at that last game, we were up 11 at the half, but they really pressured us in the second half. We have to control turnovers. That will be big.”

The winner will get either BDS or St. Francis. The Eagles got 17 points from Riley Tegtmeier and 10 each from Chris Rohr and Grant Norder in a 59-33 route of Sutherland. BDS gave High Plains their last loss — a 59-57 dandy in Polk on February 13th. The Eagles also defeated Heartland 45-41 in the D2-2 sub-district final in Geneva on February 26th.

Familiar faces, indeed.

Semifinal Coverage

Striv audio coverage will begin at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning and continue for all of the Class D semifinals through the Riverside, Bancroft-Rosalie D2 semifinal game at 3:45. Exeter-Milligan and Minatare will play in the first D2 semifinal at 2:00.