By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
DEARBORN - If COVID-19 didn't exist and attendance restrictions weren't in place, North Platte High School may have came apart Saturday.
But even with the limited crowd, it almost did.
No. 4 Mound City (Class 1) and No. 3 Mid-Buchanan (Class 2) were entrenched in a back-and-forth thrill ride Saturday afternoon, as the two squads battled it out for a North Platte tournament championship.
Trailing 47-43 with 4:44 to play, Mid-Buchanan (14-5) reeled off a 12-3 run to grab a five-point lead with 30.6 left, and fended off one last spurt from Mound City (17-1) in a 56-54 spectacle on Saturday evening.
An old-fashioned three-point play by senior Reese McClurg put the Dragons ahead 55-50 in the final half-minute.
Coming out of a full timeout, Mound City junior and all-time lead scorer Tony Osburn, who fought through a lower leg injury for most of the game, knocked down a corner three-pointer with 2.5 to go.
Mid-Buchanan nearly committed a five-second violation on the ensuing inbounds play, which would have given the ball back to the Panthers, but coach Bryce Kemper called timeout right in the nick of time.
The Panthers immediately fouled Mid-Buchanan's Tucker Holden out of that timeout. Holden went 1-for-2 at the foul line, putting the Dragons ahead 56-53 inside the last two seconds.
On the ensuing inbounds, Mid-Buchanan's Blake Hunter was called on a hold, which also happened to be the Dragons' seventh team foul with 1.7 now on the clock.
This meant a one-and-one for Mound City senior Landon Poppa. He made the first and intentionally missed the second. That nearly worked.
Osburn grabbed the rebound and had what seemed to be a decent look at a final, game-tying layup, but the ball slipped through his hands as he went up for the contested shot, allowing the Dragons to hold on.
"My teammates, we played a heck of a game," said Mid-Buchanan sophomore Joe Clark, who was one of four Dragons to score 11 points. He was also named the North Platte tournament MVP.
"We didn't rebound like we wanted to, but it was still good. Glad we finished it."
Rebounding, according to Coach Kemper, hindered Mid-Buchanan early. Mound City ended the second quarter on a 7-0 run and took a 25-23 lead into the locker room.
With the game knotted at 37 after three, Mound City created a little separation with 4:44 left. That's when Kemper decided to change things up on defense a bit.
"We just did not rebound in the first half," Kemper said. "It about got away from us in the fourth, and we kind of switched to a kind of gimmick defense (a zone scheme designed to limit the opponent's best player). We were able to rebound out of it and pull that out there at the end.
"Credit to my kids. They responded well to it. They didn't sulk and pout. They went out there and played."
The stars certainly shined in Saturday's game. Osburn, who left the game hobbling with 2:05 left in the first quarter, came back with 6:45 left in the second, and scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half. Poppa finished with a game-high 16.
Clark, Caiden Bailey, Reese McClurg and Javan Noyes all scored 11 points. Nine of Noyes' 11 came from beyond the arc.
Mound City, who had 16 of its first 17 games by 24 points or more, was just the latest team in a string of tough challenges for a battle-tested Mid-Buchanan team. The Dragons have faced four ranked teams from four different classes.
Lafayette (#8 Class 5), Bishop LeBlond (#6 Class 2), Greenwood (#2 Class 3) and then Mound City. There's also Van Horn (10-4) and Richmond (13-3) to take into account.
"It always feels great to win (these games)," Kemper said. "I mean, we've played a tough schedule and that's what we like. We've played teams from (Class) 5 to 1, state-ranked and everything. Going out there and playing against a team like (Mound City) is going to help you down the road for sure."
Mid-Buchanan 56 - 10, 13, 14, 19
Mound City 54 - 9, 16, 12, 17
Mid-Buchanan scorers - Joe Clark - 11, Caiden Bailey - 11, Reese McClurg - 11, Javan Noyes - 11, Blake Hunter - 6, Rawlins Brant - 2, Tyler Brown - 2, Tucker Holden - 1
Mound City scorers - Landon Poppa -16, Tony Osburn - 14, Lane Zembles - 9, William Rother - 6, Gage Salsbury - 6, Wil Young - 3
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