NEOSHO, Mo. — Early in the second half Friday night, Seneca senior guard Cooper Long made a pair of mid-range jump shots for a 31-28 score against the Indians’ Newton County rival Neosho.
Over the final 5 minutes, 26 seconds of the third, Neosho scored 16 unanswered points on a series of transition baskets, second-chance opportunities, and other easy baskets while Seneca had only a pair of missed free throws and otherwise empty possessions, resulting in a 47-28 lead for the Wildcats entering the fourth.
Neosho and Seneca each scored 25 points in the fourth, but it was that 16-0 stretch to end the third that went a long way toward producing a 19-point win for Neosho, 72-53.
“We were scoring it good all night, but at halftime we challenged them defensively,” Neosho coach Zane Culp said. “We don’t mind if the other team scores, but it has to be tough shots. We only gave up four points in the third quarter. That fueled our offense, and we put it pretty much out of reach.”
“We talked with our guys about how you can’t get into those dry spells,” Seneca coach Cort Hardy said. “You’ve got to find a way to score the ball in those situations. We’ve got to find the loose balls and get the putbacks, but the third quarter was the difference in the game. We just couldn’t find a way to score.”
Neosho scored at least 15 points in each quarter and eight Wildcat players found the scoring column with three of them reaching double figures.
Isaiah Green scored a game-high 21 points to lead the Wildcats, Carter Baslee and Carter Fenske combined for 23 more points with Baslee at 12 and Fenske 11, Collier Hendricks and Jared Siler each produced eight points, Kael Smith had six, and Brock Franklin and Michael Day each contributed three points.
The Wildcats scored 41 points after halftime.
“Any time a team speeds us up, it maybe throws us out of whack defensively, but it plays to our strength with Isaiah Green and Collier Hendricks playing great and now Jared Siler’s back,” Culp said. “He can run in transition. Our bigs run in transition really good too, with Baslee and Kael. That plays to our advantage. They scored more in that fourth quarter, but it felt we were going to score every time down anyway.”
Green recorded a double-double with his 10 rebounds and Hendricks came off the bench to produce seven rebounds and six assists to go with his eight points.
Neosho improved to 5-1 overall in the early season and the Wildcats play their final game before Christmas on the road Monday against winless Aurora.
“There’s always things you can work on,” Culp said. “Sometimes we have lapses in games where we’re careless with the ball when the other team isn’t even pressing us and unforced errors where we’re trying to make plays. A lot of that is because we’re so unselfish, trying to find plays for teammates so you can live with some of that. We get that cleaned up … I think we will be a formidable team to play.”
Meanwhile, eight Seneca players scored on Friday: Gavyn Hoover led with 16, Jace Schulte added 10, Hayden Gaines had eight, Zane Grotjohn netted seven, Long added six, and Ethan Altic, Morgan Vaughn, and Blake Hurn scored two each.
The Indians dropped to 4-5 on the season and one number Hardy mentioned Friday was five, representing the total of practices so far with the entire Seneca boys basketball team.
Seneca’s football team reached the Class 2 state semifinal — as a result, the Indians’ football season ended Nov. 26 and their basketball season officially began Nov. 29 with their season opener against Jasper.
“We go to Crane on Tuesday,” Hardy said. “We play a historic program with a storied coach. That will be our last test going into Christmas, then we come back and get some practices in over Christmas break and then come back ready to roll for conference play.
“Through the whole program, we have 10 football guys. On the varsity, we have five football guys. That’s the majority of the varsity players right there. I think you saw some things tonight that we’re starting to slowly get our legs and improve some things we didn’t do very good on early in the year.”
