Rich Hill vs Golden City
The Rich Hill Tigers headed to the sectional portion of the Missouri basketball play-offs on Tuesday night in Nevada against the Golden City Eagles. Both teams had punched their tickets by winning their perspective district Championships. The Tigers had beaten Montrose in a thriller on Friday in Rich Hill, while Golden City had been victorious over the Liberal Bulldogs in Liberal on Saturday night. The Tigers returned to the sectionals for the first time since 2016 with a record of 14-14 and the Eagles came in with a record of 25-2 and state ranked. These two teams had met earlier in the year with Golden City winning that contest.
The Eagles came out strong in the first quarter while the Tigers struggled in the early going with Golden City jumping to a 24-13 lead. In the second quarter Rich Hill used several combinations of players trying to slow the Eagles offense down and were more successful than the previous quarter, but saw their deficit extended. Going into the locker room the Tigers found themselves trailing at the half by a score of 41-23. The third quarter proved to be the undoing of Rich Hill’s chance of victory when their offense went cold and the Eagles seemed to be hitting every shot they took. The score after three was Rich Hill 30 the Eagles 71. The fourth quarter both teams substituted freely. Around the four minutes mark, the Tigers pulled their two Seniors, Sage Bolser and Brady Querry so their fans might show them appreciation for all the effort they had given the team during their careers. In the end the Tigers dropped this game by a score of 43-77. The season for the Tigers ended while Golden City will travel to Bolivar to meet Green Ridge in a quarter-finals match on Saturday. Scoring for the Tigers is as follows, Brady Querry and Bryce Yohe 11 each, Clifton Bridgewater 7, Sage Bolser and Blake Laning with 6 each and Daylen Walton 2.
This game didn’t go the way the Tigers would have liked it to, but really only one team finishes the season with a win. The team is to be commended for giving it their best effort although it didn’t show on the scoreboard. For the season the Tigers finished with a 14-15 record and a 5-4 WEMO Conference fourth place finish. A season ending loss can’t diminish the excitement the Tigers gave their fans last week during districts and the Championship game will be one long remembered. They say that in sports you learn a lot of life lessons and with the ups and downs this year, I’m sure this team of young men can attest this is true.
With the season having come to an end the Rich Hill Tigers coaches would like to say thank you to the community for their support during the year. The fans who traveled to the home and away games giving up their time to support the players. Thank you to the administration for helping us to have to what we needed in order to compete. To the teachers who on a daily bases encouraged the players or to helped them keep their grades up with tutoring, for the coaches it didn’t go unnoticed. To our parents we are greatly appreciative for all your support. You have provided the time, financial support, emotional support for your athlete and after school meals when we traveled. Thank you to the others of you that have helped but I may have forgotten to mention. The 2019-2020 season is now history and we now start building for the 2020-2021 season. As we close, it should be mentioned that this team became only the 9th team in school history to have won a Boys District title in basketball as it is added to the banner in the Dome.