Semoball

BLOOMFIELD XMAS TOURNAMENT: Missed opportunities sting Portageville boys basketball in loss to South Pemiscot

Portageville's Steven Guo (0) drives to the rim for a layup attempt against South Pemiscot, in the consolation championship game of the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament, at Bloomfield High School on Saturday. (Liza King/Standard Democrat)

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. —It was a thriller to start the final day of the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament on Saturday.

Portageville and South Pemiscot went down to the final buzzer in the consolation championship game, with South Pemiscot prevailing 47-46.

Leading for nearly the entire game, Portageville had multiple opportunities to put the game away but struggled down the stretch.

Portageville led 18-13 after the first period, and 31-24 at halftime, despite losing the turnover and rebounding wars.

Both rebounding and turnovers were the Achilles heel for the Bulldogs in the end as well.

South Pemiscot did more of the dirty work down low, beating the Bulldogs on the glass 29-19.

In the first half, Portageville gave up 18 rebounds but still managed to head into the locker room up seven points.

“I thought the biggest factor of the game was we could not rebound,” Portageville head coach Jason Irby said. “They crushed us on the boards. We talked about it and talked about it; we beat them a couple of weeks ago, and they beat us on the boards then, and it was even worse tonight. You can’t win if you don’t rebound and our late-game execution was bad.

“We had a couple plays drawn up that we did not execute well, so we just got to get better at execution — that’s on me — and we got to get better at blocking out.”

Likewise, controlling the ball was also a problem for Portageville — especially in the second half.

The Bulldogs finished with 18 turnovers for the game, with the bulk of the miscues coming in the later stages.

“In the first half, I think we only had four turnovers,” Irby said. “We were pretty happy with that, but in the second half, I think we ended up with 12. We talk about it all the time; we just had some kids make some bad turnovers, and a lot of that led to direct points too. I thought we were just careless, to be honest.

“They were playing hard, they ran passing lanes, but we were pretty careless and threw some ill-advised passes at bad times. We were penalized for it, and they were able to score in transition, and they are a good team in transition.”

Jamerea Rogers scored the final bucket of the game for South Pemiscot, as he got the ball in the post and backed his way into the Portageville defender and made the tough shot.

Rogers finished with 13 points, on 6-of-14 shooting, and grabbed nine rebounds as well.

“We knew he was a good driver,” Irby said. “We tried to stay in front of him, and it was a contested shot — we had a hand up. He just hit a tough shot on that one. It was all but easy buckets we gave up; we’re just not putting a body on people. We got to get tougher, that’s the bottom line.”

With 12 seconds left, senior Steven Guo had the ball in his hands and looked to make a play.

Guo drove the length of the floor and tried to get a layup at the rim, but got stuffed by a Bulldogs defender.

Portageville had another chance to win the game with five seconds left as well, as they tried to lob the ball in, but got deflected by South Pemiscot’s Noah Willingham, which ended the game.

“We wanted to get Steven a high ball-screen to try and let him make a play,” Irby said. “He got a good step on it, but their kid recovered him and blocked it out of bounds. Then, on the other one, we tried to get a little lob play at the rim. There were five seconds, and we just didn’t set a good screen, so we didn’t get our guy open, and we ended up with a turnover, so that’s just bad execution.”

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SOUTH PEMISCOT (47) — Jamerea Rogers 13, Antonio Fuller 10, Khalal Rogers 9, DeCharles Johnson 6, Noah Willingham 5, Terryon Johnson 2, Darius Johnson 2. FG 22, FT 0-3, F 8. (3-pointers: Willingham, J. Rogers, K. Rogers. Fouled out: none)

PORTAGEVILLE (46) — Bub Lance 16, Steven Guo 14, AJ Hicks 7, Drew Irby 3, Bryce Rone 2, Terry Kirkwood 2, Brendan Garmon 2. FG 19, FT 2-4, F 8. (3-pointers: S. Guo 2, Lance 2, Hicks, Irby. Fouled out: none)

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