Owens leads Charleston to 14th straight district title

Charleston's Ko'Terrion Owens drives toward the basket against Notre Dame in the final round of the Class 3 District 2 Tournament on Saturday, Feb. 24, at Notre Dame Regional High School.

Tony Capobianco ~ tcapobianco@semoball.com

In a district tournament with three 20+ win teams, it was two teams with sub-.500 records who played for the title.

The Charleston Blue Jays defeated the hosting Notre Dame Bulldogs 71-65 to win the Class 3 District 2 championship on Saturday, Feb. 24, at Notre Dame Regional High School in Cape Girardeau. The two teams have met four times this season, with Charleston winning three times.

With the win, the Blue Jays continue their streak of 14 straight district titles, a run that includes six final four appearances and two state championships. What stands out the most is this win puts Charleston into the Class 3 state tournament with a .500 record at 13-13.

“The sweetest one is always the most current one,” Charleston head coach Jamarcus Williams said. “We’ve had ups and downs this season, thin bench, tough schedule, and it’s always nice to see your schedule pay off when it’s supposed to.”

Ko'Terrion Owens led the Blue Jays with 26 points while Tayshon Clark scored 22 points as the only two double-digit scorers for Charleston.

“Ko’Terrion is a tremendous player,” Williams said. “He's a tremendous kid. He is the ideal player that one would want on a team. In practice, he's given his all, all season long, every day.”

With PJ Farmer transferring to Sikeston, Owens was counted on to be at his best and shoulder the load while being the example for the rest of the team. This season he’s leading the Blue Jays with 19.7 points, 8.6 rebounds, and 4.4 assists per game.

“I told him before the season started, just with the outlook of our roster, that there will be several games that you're playing on 32 minutes, so get yourself in shape for it. And he did exactly that and then didn't brag about a one time. Whenever I made the team run extra sprints at the end, he knew the reason why… He deserves everything that's coming his way right now.”

After trailing 18-17 in the first quarter, the Bulldogs clawed back with a 20-point second quarter to lead 37-34 at halftime. Given how the Notre Dame environment has supported the team since the regular season finale, this looked like the Bulldogs’ to lose.

The Blue Jays spent the third quarter reducing the Bulldogs’ lead until finally regaining the top position by the fourth quarter with a 58-53 advantage. With 17 second-half points, Notre Dame simply had no answer for Owens.

Notre Dame’s postseason fate was sealed when Johnson was held without a basket throughout the fourth quarter. The sharpshooting junior finished with 17 points while Logan Landewee added 15 points and Trenton Schumacker chipped in 11 to round out the double-digit scorers for Notre Dame. Senior Carson Essner scored four first-half points in his final game as a Bulldog.

Charleston will host New Madrid County Central, the Class 3 District 1 champion in the sectional round of the Class 3 State Tournament on Tuesday, Feb. 27. The Eagles have previously won twice against the Blue Jays this season but Williams expects a different game in the third installment of the trilogy.

“Very different because now everybody knows it’s do or die,” Williams said. “There’s no holding back. There’s no time to be timid. There’s no time not to take a charge. There’s no time to not dive on the floor for loose balls. They want to prove the naysayers wrong and they want to prove themselves that they are good, that they can beat New Madrid. It’s a much different group right now than we were in January.”