St. Vincent got more than it bargained for in its Class 2, District 3 tournament matchup. Six seed Puxico jumped out to an early lead and stuck around for much of the game before three seed St. Vincent pulled away in the second half for a 62-47 victory on Tuesday at St. Vincent High School.
“Puxico came out and made shots and had a good game plan,” St. Vincent boys basketball coach Bruce Valleroy said. “It took us a while to wake up. During the district tournament you can’t have any lackadaisical moments because teams are going to bite you if you don’t come ready to play.”
Evan DeWilde led St. Vincent with 17 points, while John Wibbenmeyer added 16. Phillip Ernst chipped in 13 points to round out the players in double figures.
For Puxico, Dalton Andrews led all scorers with 19 and Brayton Budges chipped in 10 points.
Puxico certainly took a chunk out of St. Vincent early and struck the first blow as they scored points on four of their first five possessions to take an early 11-2 run. A lay-up by Shawn Koishor was the only points St. Vincent scored in the first four minutes.
“You have to give Puxico credit because they came in as the number six seed and had nothing to lose and played like it,” Valleroy said. “We didn’t play our typical defense to start the game, but once we started to make shots, we got our legs under us.”
Probably the biggest shot of the game came from Grant Abernathy, who was moved up from the junior varsity squad in the final four games of the regular season stepped into the first quarter as a substitute and drilled a three-pointer on his first shot to bring St. Vincent within 11-9 margin with 2:10 remaining in the period.
“That’s his job,” Valleroy said of Abernathy’s shot,” He has to come in and shoot the ball from the outside when given the opportunity. He is one of our best outside shooters and I hope he can help us in the games to come.”
From that moment on St. Vincent took control of the contest, thanks to its ability to shoot from the outside. Phillip Ernst converted a steal by John Wibbenmeyer into a layup to tie the game at 11 points apiece and DeWilde hit back-to-back threes to give St. Vincent at 17-14 lead at the end of the quarter. That hot shooting carried into the second quarter as DeWilde hit four triples in the first half and the Indians scraped into six total in the first 16 minutes and seven for the game.
