By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
SPRINGFIELD - It's been well documented by now that this is Mound City's first Final Four appearance in boys' basketball since 1981.
St. Elizabeth has been here each of the last three years. Yet, in the opening moments of Friday's Class 1 semifinal game, Mound City seemed far more comfortable in the bright lights of JHQ Arena.
Junior Tony Osburn scored his first seven points in 90 seconds. All of a sudden, the Panthers (29-1) are up 23-4 after the first quarter.
St. Elizabeth was 4-of-25 from the floor in the first half, and didn't score for the first 6:34 of the second quarter.
"We hit some big shots in the beginning," said senior Landon Poppa, who scored half of his 16 points in the first quarter. "It got us going. We pressured them and made them move faster than they wanted. And, we shot good shots."
The lead ballooned to as much as 30, and Mound City coasted on that momentum in a 59-39 win over St. Elizabeth (18-7) on Friday.
St. Elizabeth, down 36-11 at half, woke up a bit offensively in the third quarter, hitting their first two three-pointers of the game, but the Panthers peppered on 19 more and led 55-25 entering the fourth.
St. Elizabeth didn't go down quietly, hitting four more threes in the final quarter and outscoring Mound City 14-4 in the last eight minutes.
Mound City shot 41 percent in the first half, but just 25.8 percent in the second.
"We relaxed and we just let off the gas," said Poppa. "We should not do that. I mean, we just have to be prepared for tomorrow."
The Panthers did more than enough to put the game away in the third quarter, and certainly asserted their dominance early, but by no means is Mound City about to get comfortable with one game left.
That last game, of course, being the most important one.
"We just got a big lead, but we fell apart a little in the second half," Osburn said, after scoring a game-high 26 points. "Tomorrow, that can't happen, or we're not going to win. So, we're looking at that and trying to build off of it for tomorrow."
Mound City looks to cap off its historic, dominant run in 2020-21, when they face South Iron in the Class 1 championship on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Those Panthers (23-4) cruised in their semifinal Friday, downing Higbee 75-40. Just like Mound City, it's been awhile since South Iron has hung a championship banner. Since 1965, in fact.
"Tomorrow is the last one of the year, no matter what," said Osburn, who looks to make even more history as Mound City's all-time leading scorer. "So, you have to give it all you got."
Mound City 59 - 23, 13, 19, 4
St. Elizabeth 39 - 4, 7, 14, 14
Mound City scorers - Tony Osburn - 26, Landon Poppa - 17, Gage Salisbury - 10, Wil Young - 3, Lane Zembles - 3
St. Elizabeth scorers - Brock Lucas - 14, Carson Kesel - 8, Clayton Holtmeyer - 7, Caleb Oligschlaeger - 3, Josh Goeller - 3, Dylan Wobbe - 2, Jace Kesel - 2
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.