Clearwater's Kyle Randolph heads to the basket as Doniphan's Mitch Granier plays catch-up Tuesday night at the OFC Tournament in Broseley. (Brad Hurt/DAR) [Click to enlarge]

By BRAD HURT ~ DAR Sports Writer

BROSELEY -- Doniphan took an early lead and never allowed Clearwater the chance to make a close game of it Tuesday, advancing to the championship game of the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament with a 51-36 win.

After playing the top-seeded Dons close for the first 2 minutes of the game, the Tigers succumbed to intense defensive pressure applied on the ball, resulting in numerous turnovers.

"They get up and pressure you tight and we turned the ball over quite a bit," said Clearwater acting coach Justin Dobbins, who led the Tigers in place of an ill Louis Bell.

The Dons dominated the boards, converting several second-chance opportunities into easy points.

The Wilson brothers each made a fastbreak layup to end the first quarter with the Dons holding a 14-6 lead. Charles Wilson opened the second quarter with a layup and then a putback of a teammate's miss.

"Our seniors are very important," Doniphan coach Jason Andrews said. "I just feel like we could have played a lot better tonight."

Senior Tyler Collins led the Dons with 16 points while Charles Wilson scored 14 and Chandler added eight, all in the first half.

Charles came up with a big basket in the second quarter as he rebounded his own miss, scored and drew a foul to put the Dons up 27-15 with three minutes remaining before halftime.

The Tigers found success on offense once they got the ball into the paint, but getting it past the Doniphan defense proved to be a difficult task.

The Tigers fell behind in the first half due largely to their inability to rebound the basketball, although they improved that aspect of their game in the second half.

"I didn't feel like we rebounded the basketball very well in the first half, but we talked about it at halftime and stepped it up in the second half," Dobbins said.

Clearwater's problems in the second half stemmed from a lack of ball control. The Tigers turned the ball over 13 times in the second half and 23 times for the game.

The Dons led by as many as 23 points following a 3-pointer by Collins that pushed the lead to 48-25 with five minutes remaining in the game The . Dons knocked down five 3-pointers in the game to Clearwater's three.

Luke Hillis scored a gamehigh 17 points in the loss for Clearwater.