BOYS BB: Pioneer’s upset bid falls short against DeMotte

FULTON — Pioneer faced a tall task against DeMotte Christian in the first round of the Class 1A Caston Sectional on Wednesday night.

The Knights fly under the radar a bit as they tend to change sectional fields due to their geography, and they were a sub-.500 team a year ago in their return to Sectional 50. But they’re among the sectional favorites in the computer rankings and currently have the most wins in the field.

They handled the Panthers 50-36 to move on to the semifinal round.

The Panthers (7-16) put up a good battle and played the Knights (20-4) to a 9-9 tie after one quarter of play and trailed just 24-20 at halftime.

But things started to slip away in the second half as DeMotte outscored them 13-3 in the third to take a 37-23 lead into the final quarter. The Panthers weren’t able to get it any closer than 11 in the fourth.

“I think we expended a lot of energy in the first half just trying to play really good defense and maybe we sat too long at halftime because I just felt we were a step slow in the second half,” Pioneer coach Darren McKaig said. “We needed to score some points to get some momentum, some adrenaline back and it was just hard to score in that third quarter and it’s been hard for us to score all year. But we were trying. We gave it everything we had. We were trying to go inside and get some easy buckets, and a few blocked shots, a few fouls maybe didn’t go our way.”

The Panthers won the turnover battle 15-12. But they were outrebounded 25-14.

They got some good looks at the basket but just didn’t get enough to fall.

Tony Bos, a 6-foot-6 senior guard, led DeMotte with 22 points and 10 rebounds. He shot 7 of 12 from the field including 3 of 5 from 3-point range.

Tanyon Bakker was also in double figures with 12 points.

Shiloh Rine had eight points and five rebounds to lead the Panthers. Phillip McFatridge had eight points and three steals. Gabriel Scott scored eight points despite battling foul trouble all night. Lane Weldy scored five points. Micah Rans added four points and four assists.

The Panthers have a group where several of them were a key part of the state runner-up football team. In basketball they showed they were capable of being a dangerous draw, having defeated Carroll, North Judson and Knox and playing Caston and Northwestern close.

“Up and down, a lot of injuries,” McKaig said. “I told the guys that the season seemed like it went really fast to me. And maybe that’s because of our late start with football and everything else, but when the season goes fast, it means it was enjoyable. And I enjoyed it. I didn’t really reflect on the season too much until a couple days ago. We were just moving forward, moving forward and trying to play our best game here at the end. And I feel like we had it in us. We just needed a few more shots to drop and we could have pulled off an upset here, but it just didn’t go our way.”

McKaig said Pioneer has an eighth grade class coming up that has gone a combined 56-0 during their junior high school basketball career.

“We played a lot of sophomores this year varsity and they got a full year of experience. I think we’ll keep getting better and better over the next couple years,” he said.

McKaig also credited the trio of Rans, Rine and McFatridge, who were also instrumental in the football run to state.

“Those three especially just gave just gave their soul to this. They hardly ever came out of the game and played as hard as they could, believed they could win this, but really it was asking so much of them and they just never doubted,” he said. “We really do worry about records too much and results too much because you would take those guys any sport anywhere just because you want be around them. So I wanted make sure I told them in the locker room how much I appreciate them.”