The McDonald’s Holiday Tournament got underway Thursday with varsity boys games played at Miami Trace High School.
In the second game of the evening, Miami Trace took on Madison Plains.
The Panthers held on to win this game, 64-62.
The Golden Eagles had a pair of free throws to possibly tie the game with 2.5 seconds left.
Both charity tosses missed.
Plains got the rebound from the second miss and put up a shot that would have sent the game into overtime, but it was no good.
Miami Trace (6-4 overall) will play London for the championship of the McDonald’s tournament Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
London defeated Greeneview in Thursday’s first semifinal, 58-41.
The Rams will play the Golden Eagles in the consolation game Saturday at 2 p.m.
Junior Logan Rodgers had a career-high 30 points for Miami Trace. He had a double-double with 10 rebounds, including six on the offensive end. He had one blocked shot and three steals.
Miami Trace senior Trevor Barker scored 10 points and led the game with six assists and four steals.
Junior Ethan Steele scored eight points for the Panthers and junior Cameron Moore had seven points.
The Panthers won the game despite Madison Plains hitting 12 of 28 three-point field goal attempts for 42 percent.
Senior C.J. Crawford led Madison Plains with 18 points, including four three-point goals.
Junior Aydn Gammell hit three threes and scored a total of 13 for Madison Plains and junior Gabe Garrison had 12 points, including three treys.
Gammell led Madison Plains with five rebounds and shared the team lead of three assists with junior Ryan Ernst.
Miami Trace took a 4-1 lead to start the game.
Three minutes into the action, the Panthers were in front, 14-4.
Madison Plains cut the margin to two points, 20-18, before the Panthers closed out the initial period on a 6-0 run.
The Panthers led early in the second quarter, 28-18.
That 10-point lead would not withstand the barrage of three-point shots rained down by Madison Plains.
The Golden Eagles hit six threes in the second quarter and took a 40-38 halftime lead.
One key to the game was Miami Trace holding Madison Plains to nine points in the third quarter, while scoring 14 to take a 52-49 lead.
Plains sank another three to start the third quarter, answered by back-to-back threes from Barker.
Senior Kyler Conn hit a three-point basket with 2:27 to play in the third to give the Panthers a 51-45 lead.
The Golden Eagles hit a shot at the buzzer for the above-mentioned 52-49 margin heading into the fourth quarter.
In the final period, the Panthers looked for Rodgers and found him, often.
He did not disappoint as he scored all 12 of the Panthers’ points in the fourth, with five field goals and two free throws.
The game was tied, 62-62 with 1:30 to play.
Rodgers scored what proved to be the game’s final bucket with 1:08 remaining.
“The pressure was good to us early in the game,” Miami Trace head coach Rob Pittser said. “But then, once they started breaking it cleanly, they just started raining threes on us. They had multiple kids (five total) making threes tonight.
“Twelve threes is an awful lot of threes to give up in a game,” Pittser said. “Some of those were well-contested, some of it was broken defense. They shot the ball really well. We’re fortunate to get the win tonight.
“We shifted plans at halftime,” Pittser said. “We went completely away from the pressure, nothing full-court at all, man or zone. We played half-court man and mixed in some half-court zone. The zone was really good to us. It allowed us to cover the three-point line better. They were a little bit more limited; it was a little bit tougher for them to get open shots in the second half. We gave up 40 points in the first half and only 22 in the second half. A lot of that was because we slowed the tempo down, went into that zone and did a better job of covering the three-point line.”
Pittser spoke about the effort of Rodgers.
“He got a lot of stuff around the bucket, finished the plays and played really hard,” Pittser said. “The kids did a nice job of finding him and he did a nice job of making plays.”
SCORE BY QUARTERS
MT 26 12 14 12 — 64
MP 18 22 9 13 — 62
MIAMI TRACE — Logan Rodgers 13-4-30; Trevor Barker 1 (2)-2-10; Ethan Steele 4-0-8; Cameron Moore 2 (1)-0-7; Kyler Conn 1 (1)-0-5; Andrew Guthrie 0-2-2; Dylan Bernard 0-2-2; Hayden Hunter 0-0-0; Keegan Terry 0-0-0. TOTALS —21 (4)-10-64. Free throw shooting: 10 of 14 for 71 percent. Three-point field goals: Barker, 2; Moore, Conn. Field goal shooting: 25 of 47 for 53 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 4 of 14 for 28 percent. Rebounds: 25 (9 offensive). Assists: 17. Steals: 13. Blocks: 1. Turnovers: 25. Personal fouls: 13. Bench points: 11. Second chance points: 4. Points off turnovers: 15.
MADISON PLAINS — C.J. Crawford 3 (4)-0-18; Aydn Gammell 2 (3)-0-13; Gabe Garrison 1 (3)-1-12; Matt Johnson 2 (1)-0-7; Paul Bryant 3-0-6; Ryan Ernst 1-1-3; Wes Stires 0 (1)-0-3; Sebastian Ruzicka 0-0-0; Logan Stephenson 0-0-0. TOTALS — 12 (12)-2-62. Free throw shooting: 2 of 9 for 22 percent. Three-point field goals: Crawford, 4; Gammell, 3; Garrison, 3; Johnson, Stires. Field goal shooting: 24 of 51 for 47 percent. Three-point field goal shooting: 12 of 28 for 42 percent. Rebounds: 20 (9 offensive). Assists: 16. Steals: 10. Blocks: 1. Turnovers: 20. Personal fouls: 10. Bench points: 15. Second chance points: 9. Points off turnovers: 9.
