Top-seed Puxico has singular focus entering Bloomfield Tournament

Fourth-year Puxico High School varsity basketball coach Bryant Fernetti prepares to speak to his players during a timeout late in their game against Thayer on Saturday at Puxico High School.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

PUXICO – For the second consecutive season, the Puxico High School varsity boy’s basketball squad enters the annual Bloomfield Christmas Tournament as the top seed. However, the Indians are not going for their second consecutive tournament title after being knocked off by eventual champion Malden last year in the championship semifinals.

The Indians (5-1) will open this year’s event today at 10 a.m. against No. 16-seed Gideon, and fourth-year Puxico coach Bryant Fernetti isn’t looking any further ahead than that game at this juncture.

“Gideon was up at the half against Campbell,” Fernetti said. “And they gave East Prairie a pretty good game early.”

To his point, the Bulldogs (2-6) have been competitive in five of their six defeats, and four of those losses have come against teams (East Prairie, Bloomfield, Richland (Essex), and Campbell) who are a combined 21-4.

“It’s not like you can waltz in there and beat anybody,” Fernetti said. “You are going to have to play well.”

A year ago in the Stoddard County Athletic Association Tournament, Puxico was the top seed in that event, as well, but found itself down 35-33 16 minutes into the tournament against No. 8-seed Advance.

“You have to keep the main thing being that game,” Fernetti said of having singular focus. “At that time, (focus) on the task at hand.”

The Indians learned that lesson once it got to the postseason last spring, as Puxico ran through the MSHSAA Class 2 District 3 Tournament and the MSHSAA Class 2 Sectional 3, before falling one jump shot shy of advancing to the State Finals.

“I think that our guys do a pretty good job of (focusing),” Fernetti said.

The Indians will have to mentally regroup after playing one of its biggest regular season games in a while on Saturday.

Puxico is ranked No. 5 in Class 2 and hosted Class 3 No. 5-ranked Thayer in front of a packed gymnasium. The Indians battled the Bobcats until the final minute before falling 58-50.

“We were obviously pretty fired up for a game like this,” Fernetti said following the loss. “But, we need to treat (today's game) with the same level of intensity as we did (against Thayer).”