BCT Day 2: Bearcats stop Puxico's Cinderella run

BLOOMFIELD -- At last year's Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, the Puxico Indians relished in playing the role of spoiler.

As the No. 12-seed, the Indians sent Dexter packing in the first-round then ousted the host Bloomfield in the next quarterfinals before being eliminated in the semifinals by Hayti.

This year, Puxico got its revenge on Hayti in the first round Friday night. But in return, Dexter got its own revenge against the Indians as they cruised to a lopsided 74-38 victory in the quarterfinals Saturday.

The win for the Bearcats sets up a meeting with top-seeded Bernie in the semifinal Monday.

Dexter coach Rob Nichols wasn't too thrilled with how things started for his Bearcats. But as the game progressed, everything turned out alright.

"I don't think we played very well in the first half," Nichols said. "We just looked very tentative and not very aggressive. But you gotta give a lot of credit to Puxico, they had a lot to do with that."

Puxico kept the score close in the first quarter as John Smith scored five of the Indians' 10 points. Dexter had trouble knocking down its open shots, but still managed to end the quarter with a 12-10 lead.

Dexter maintained the lead the entire second quarter, but for the most part, Puxico had an answer for every Dexter bucket. The Bearcats pulled away late in the quarter with six straight free throws made by Alan Flannigan, Gary Summers and Taylor Jarrell to take a 30-20 lead into halftime.

The wheels fell off the Puxico wagon in the third quarter as Dexter jumped out of the gate with a 16-2 run started by 3-pointers from Summers and Jon Bowman.

Bowman just simply couldn't be stopped from beyond-the-arc the rest of the quarter as he totaled five 3-pointers and added a 2-pointer for a total of 17 of Dexter's 30 points in the quarter.

"In the second half we got a little more patient offensively," Nichols said. "We started making the extra pass and got better shots."

Dexter led 60-30 at the end of the third quarter and played with a running clock the majority of the fourth quarter to cruise to the win.

Bowman, who's a junior, totaled a game-high 24 points including six 3-pointers. He also hit five 3s Friday night in the first round against East Prairie.

"He's a very good perimeter shooter," Nichols said. "If he will let the game come to him and take those shots -- sometimes shot selection is an issue -- but when he takes good shots we're pretty confident he's gonna hit them."

Dexter also returned Alan Flannigan who didn't play Friday due to injury. The sophomore was second on the team in scoring with 12 points.

"He's a big factor for us as far as being an inside scorer," Nichols said. "He's a good defender around the basket. He didn't play as well as we could tonight he had a little rust and he might be favoring that foot a little bit but we hope he'll be even better Monday night."

Puxico senior Cody Russom scored a tournament-high 29 points on Friday night, but scored just eight points Saturday and fouled out in the third quarter. Johh Smith was Saturday night's leader in points with 17.

"It was a huge letdown," Puxico coach Marc Crane said. "Our guys came out and it looked like they were gonna be on fire early and then a couple calls didn't go our way and they got they lost intensity."

Crane felt that Bowman had to start missing at some point.

"I told the guys if (Bowman's) gonna shoot it from 3 or 4 feet from behind the arc to let him shoot it, because he's probably not gonna make it," Crane added. "And he did but if we had another game and he was back behind the arc that far -- I'd let him shoot again because I really don't believe he's got that kind of range. But I may be wrong."

PUXICO -- Coffee 0 0-0 0. Wood 0 1-2 1. Guilliams 0 2-6 2. Russom 2 4-4 8. Smith 5(2) 5-8 17. Stuart 2 0-0 4. Gadberry 0 0-2 0. Phillips 2 0-0 4. Pollnow 0 2-2 2. Totals: 11(2) 14-24 38.

DEXTER -- Kelley 2(2) 0-0 6. Starling 3 3-3 9. Windham 0 1-2 1. Summers 3 2-6 8. Stoker 1(1) 0-0 3. Stephens 3 1-5 7. Flannigan 4 4-5 12. Bowman 7(6) 4-5 24. Cox 0 0-0 0. Jarrell 1 2-2 4. Sifford 0 0-0 0. Hester 0 0-0 0. Totals: 24(9) 17-28 74.