Tigers will face a tough road to the D1 State title
LINCOLN - Osmond drew the third seed in this year’s Class D1 State Tournament.
The Tigers will have to face a couple of tough foes if they want to make a return trip to Saturday’s State title game.
Last year, Osmond had to settle for State Runnerup honors, as they fell 67-54 to Johnson-Brock in last year’s State title game.
Johnson-Brock did not make the return trip to Lincoln this year, but the Tigers will still have a tough road ahead of them.
The Orange and Black will open State Tournament action against Southern Valley.
The game will tip off at 3:45 p.m. at Lincoln East High School.
The Tigers are led by Keaton Timmerman, who is averaging 18.4 points per game.
Southern Valley is led by a balanced attack with three athletes averaging in double figures.
Southern Valley is led by 6-1 Junior Clayton Berry, who averages 13.8 points per game. He is followed by 6-2 senior Carter Bose, who averages 12.8 points per game.
Brody Yant, a 5-9 Junior, hits for 10.6 points per game.
Another area team, Randolph, also advanced to the State Tournament.
Randolph (17-7) enters the D2 Tourney as the eighth seed and will take on top seed Humphrey St. Francis (25-0) at 9 a.m. Thursday at Lincoln Southeast High School
Randolph continued its winning ways with a March 2, 47-39 District finals win over No. 9 Deshler.
‘We were down 14 in the third quarter and we started getting aggressive on defense and started forcing turnovers and our offense started to pick up and making shots,” Randolph head coach Mark Anderson said. ‘We kept getting closer until with about two minutes left , we tied it up. It was a great defensive effort. We forced 22 turnovers in the second half.”
Now it’s on to Lincoln and a shot to go against Class D2 juggernaut St. Francis (25-0).
But, still, not bad for a team that started 0-4 and has since won 17 of its last 20 games.
“Early on we played some really tough teams,” Anderson said. “Those were big challenges for us and then we got a transfer (Jamison Svehla) in who started scoring for us and that helped. We played hard; we Just didn’t have enough firepower against some of those teams to win.”
The Cards are riding high and the play by Carter Schnoor (16.4 ppg, 4.7 apg, 3.8 rpg), Keaton Backhaus (14.2 ppg, 7.7 rpg) and Svehla (15.0, 4.7 rpg) has keyed this big run.
St. Francis counters with the triple-headed threat of guards that includes Trevor Pfeifer (16.6 ppg, 5.1 rpg), Tanner Pfeifer (15.0, 4.6 rpg) and Justin Leifeld (11.1 ppg, 4.6 rpg).
“It will be a tough matchup and we watched them on film quite a bit so we know they are a quality team,” Anderson said. “Any time you go undefeated in any class, you have a good ballclub.”
