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Greyhounds advance to Region VI final
Between 1970 and 2012, Fort Scott Community College's men's basketball program lost 21 consecutive playoff games.
As of Tuesday night, the Greyhound men's program has won two of its last three playoff games. The second-seeded Greyhounds dominated sixth-seeded Kansas City Kansas in the first half of an 82-65 victory in the semifinals of the Region VI Division II Tournament at Arnold Arena.
It was the first time Fort Scott played host to a playoff contest since March 1967.
Fort Scott (13-16), winner of its last four games going back to a 92-59 rout of Hesston at Arnold Arena on February 19, will face top-seeded Brown Mackie at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Region VI final at Wichita State University's Koch Arena. Brown Mackie (20-11) defeated fourth-seeded Highland, 89-75, at Salina in Tuesday's other semifinal.
"We have four goals this year and we've met three of them now," Fort Scott men's head coach Michael Cook said. "This was the third one. Fourth one is to win at Wichita and go to nationals and anything can happen there."
The winner of Saturday's final advances to the Division II National Tournament.
Kansas City (7-25), which went 0-6 in Jayhawk Conference-Eastern Division II and 0-10 in regional tournament seeding games had lost 20 of its last 21 prior to upsetting No. 3-seed Johnson County Saturday. The Greyhounds beat KCK by just 10 points in their first meeting on February 10 and by just one at Kansas City a week ago, so they knew the Blue Devils weren't to be taken lightly.
Fort Scott opened the game with the first 5 points as Prince Samuels drove in for a basket, drew a foul and converted the free throw. Then Will Harrington drove in for a layup.
Clay Young hit a 3-point shot for KCK. But Samuels sparked a run of 9 straight points with a layup.
A 3-point basket by Kevin House made it 19-6 with 10:44 on the clock.
"We came out with great energy tonight," Cook said. "And the crowd helped us with that."
Fort Scott made 11 of its 15 shots from the field in building the lead to 28-9 with 6:33 left in the first half. Harrington scored the last two baskets of that run.
Fort Scott held KCK to 3-of-15 field-goal shooting early in the first half. Each of the Blue Devils' makes were 3-point shots as they missed their first 11 two-pointers.
"In the first half, we picked them up full court," Cook said of the defensive strategy. "They wanted to keep the score in the 50s, so we wanted to (make them) take some time off the shot clock. We got a couple of shot-clock violations for the fact that we pressed them coming up and dropped back into a zone and made them work."
Fort Scott's offensive pace eventually slowed down but Kansas City couldn't get its offense going so that it could catch up. The Blue Devils never string together a run of even two consecutive scores in the first half.
Dalton Rose hit a 3-point shot with 1:48 on the clock and House made two free throws with a second to go to extend Fort Scott's lead to 39-17 at the half. It was the fewest points the Greyhounds had held anyone to in a half since allowing the Arkansas Tech JV only 19 points on Nov. 12, 2011, a game they won 81-53.
Kansas City scored 6 straight points early in the second half to get within 42-23 with 17:39 remaining in the contest. That was the only time over the course of the entire game when the Blue Devils scored more than one field goal without interruption.
The 'Hounds scored 7 of the next 10, the last four on Harrington layups to make it 49-26 with 15:17 left.
Harrington, a redshirt freshman from Lees Summit, Mo., had one of his best games as a Greyhound, finishing the night with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
"Will did a hell of a job as far as the boards," Cook said. "And scoring, he's aggressive all over the place."
House, a sophomore from Oklahoma City, finished the night with 26 points and 6 assists for the 'Hounds. The Devils didn't have any way to defend his quickness and he was able to drive for baskets, pass off to teammates for good shots, or find a way to get to the foul line, where he made 13 of 14 shots.
"If you want to press us, we're going to put him in the middle and turn him loose," Cook said. "I told the guys, 'Why are we holding the ball? They're going to press us aggressive; let's attack it and see if we can get one quick. That's what we did tonight. Kevin is just too quick of a guard to do that to."
Rose added 13 points for the Greyhounds, who shot 59 percent from the field, making 27 of 46 field-goal attempts. Lucas Smith led the Devils with 18 points followed by Nathaniel Collins with 15 and Stephen Leimbach with 13.
Fort Scott was outrebounded 47-35 but held KCK to 36-percent field-goal shooting on 24 of 67 and turned the ball over only 9 times.
Two years ago, this program finished its season 2-29. Now it's in the Region VI final.
"We challenged the guys this year to make it better," Cook said. "For us to continue to climb says a lot about those guys. And coach (James) Hays does a great job for me. He takes pressure off me so I can handle the game and he takes care of the bench."
(6) KANSAS CITY KANSAS: Leimbach 5-15 0-0 13, Adney 0-3 0-0 0, Ridley 6-14 2-2 15, Collins 1-4 2-3 4, Young 3-12 0-0 7, Allen 4-9 0-0 8, Smith 5-10 6-12 18. TOTALS: 24-67 10-17 65.
(2) FORT SCOTT: House 6-10 13-14 26, Harrington 6-8 4-6 16, Johnson 4-4 1-1 0, McCormack 0-0 0-0 0, Knight 0-0 0-0 0, Rose 4-10 2-2 13, Rowe 1-1 0-0 3, Stroman 0-1 0-0 0, Hall 1-5 2-4 5, Brantley 1-1 0-0 2. TOTALS: 27-46 22-27 82.
Halftime: Fort Scott, 39-17.
Three-point field goals: Kansas City Kansas 7-26 (Leimbach 3-12, Smith 2-4, Ridley 1-2, Young 1-5, Allen 0-1, Adney 0-2), Fort Scott 6-17 (Rose 3-9, Rowe 1-1, House 1-2, Hall 1-4, Stroman 0-1).
Total fouls: Kansas City Kansas 22, Fort Scott 18. Fouled out: Allen.
Rebounds: Kansas City Kansas 47 (Smith 10), Fort Scott 35 (Harrington 10). Assists: Kansas City Kansas 9 (Ridley 3, Smith 3), Fort Scott 11 (House 6). Turnovers: Kansas City Kansas 9, Fort Scott 9. Steals: Kansas City Kansas 5 (RIdley 2, Smith 2), Fort Scott 3 (Harrington 2). Blocked shots: Kansas City Kansas 1 (Young), Fort Scott none.