Heartland Christian advances to first district final
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ORWELL --Win No. 200 was a sweet one for Heartland Christian boys basketball coach Josh Scott.
No. 201 could be even sweeter.
No. 14-seeded Heartland Christian shocked No. 2-seeded Bristol to claim its first berth in the Div. IV district final for the first time on Tuesday at Grand Valley High School.
In the midst of a postseason run where the odds have been stacked against them from day one, the timing of this win has not gone unnoticed.
"I had (win No. 200) off my radar," Scott said. "Our kids were talking about it towards the end of the year, and we went on the three-game skid and it totally slipped my mind. I had not thought about that, and they started mentioning on the bench there in the last few seconds. Just to do it on this stage and to get to the first-ever district championship game in our school's history, I believe in any sport, that's storybook stuff. I mean that's stuff that people write books about."
Heartland (16-9) will face No. 1 seed Warren JFK at 7 p.m. on Friday in the district final at Grand Valley High School.
"We know that they're an extremely good team," Scott said. "At this point in the game for us, we know that we're underdogs, but we have been in the (previous) two games too. We're extremely excited to be able to practice tomorrow, and we're going to give every single ounce of effort that we have for Friday, and we're just gonna let the chips fall where they may."
It's a tall task, but the last two games have also been tall tasks. To the Lions, they're playing with house money.
"That's exactly what we said. We're playing with house money," Scott said. "Nobody expects a 14 seed to get to the district final. I think that it's fine. We're not big, we're not quicker than everybody. We're not stronger than everybody but our guys, they just work really hard. They share the ball, they shoot it, and I think come tournament time. You just want to be peaking at the right time, and I think that's what we're doing."
Heartland got the hot hand early by outscoring the Panthers 12-4 in the first quarter. The Lions followed that up with an even better second quarter where six threes helped the team to a 36-18 advantage. Isaiah Matthews scored 11 of his 12 points in that frame to push the Lions into a prime positon.
Jake Walker led the winners with 16 points.
For Bristol, that was the case Tuesday as the Panthers were never quite able to get anything going, running out of gas against Heartland Christian.
"As good as I think they are, and as well-coached as they are, I think a lot of it was us tonight. We just couldn't get past ourselves," Panthers coach Craig Giesy said. "I think that we had a great year. I loved the year, I enjoyed almost every minute of the year except for tonight. I'm very proud of our guys tonight. We just didn't have it.
"We didn't have anything we had the whole year. Offensively we were just sluggish the whole night. I don't even want to count up the missed shots, missed threes and missed layups even. It was just one of those nights unfortunately. It was a big night, and the wrong night to have that, but it's also the game of basketball."
The Panthers (20-4) lose one of the best players in school history in Mikey Burbach. Burbach finishes his Bristol career as the all-time rebounding leader, and has the single-game and single-season marks as well.
Also graduating are Jayden Miller and Zane Shafer.
"Mikey spent a lot of time in basketball throughout his life, playing and getting better in the last couple of years. He spent a lot of time on his body to mature, and I think that showed through the year," Giesy said. "He was everything for us this year. He led us in every category, that's a kid you don't replace. ... (Jayden's) brother played for us too, and Mikey's brother played, so not only are we losing key pieces that play, we're losing families. These are probably the last guys in their families (that play), so it's a sad day for our program in that manner."
HC: 12-24-14-5--55
BR: 4-14-15-10--43
HEARTLAND SCORING: Isaiah Matthews 4-1-12, Collin Kalaher 2-0-5, Jake Walker 6-0-16, Tyler Rarick 0-1-1, Will Morgan 2-2-7, Johnny Myer 0-0-0, Seth Walker 1-2-5, Jack Morgan 0-0-0, Brody Conaway 3-2-9. TEAM TOTALS: 17: 8-14: 55.
BRISTOL SCORING: Seth Miller 0-0-0, Jayden Miller 2-2-7, Croc Thorp 2-1-6, Kaiden Kohler 3-0-7, Zane Shafer 2-0-4, Jack Berry 4-0-9, Mikey Burbach 3-1-7, Gall 1-0-3. TEAM TOTALS: 17, 4-7: 43.
Three-point goals: Heartland 10 (Jake Walker 4, Matthews 3, Kalaher, Seth Walker, Conaway), Bristol 5 (J. Miller, Thorp, Kohler, J. Berry, Gall).