The Republic Tigers used suffocating defense to beat St. Francis Borgia in the state quarterfinals for a second straight year, earning another trip to Columbia with a 57-44 win Saturday in Bolivar. It’s the third trip to the semifinals in five years for Republic, who finished fourth in 2010 and won the championship last year.
Cody Geiger scored 18 points and Dylan Bekemeier added 14 in a game the Tigers controlled from the outset.
“There was no doubt about it,” says coach Trevyor Fisher. “Our defensive effort is what was the key tonight. For the most part, we were in tune with what we wanted to do on the defensive end. We rebounded pretty well and made enough shots on the offensive end.
“I’m proud of our kids, how they came back after a poor defensive performance on Wednesday (against Carl Junction) and the way they played tonight.”
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Playing tight man-to-man defense, the Tigers held Borgia’s leading scorer, Walton Eckelkamp, to just two points all day. They allowed Borgia to score just 18 points in the 1st half.
Republic jumped ahead 17-7, in large part because of a fast start by Dylan Bekemeier, who hit two three-pointers in the opening minutes.
“Any time you can make shots early, especially threes, that gets the weight off everyone’s shoulder,” says Fisher. “It opened up the middle a little bit to get in there and to attack. A great start offensively, but most importantly defensively.”
Borgia made brief runs in the 2nd and 3rd quarters to get the lead down to single digits, but Republic answered every time. Geiger’s two-handed dunk in the 4th quarter put an exclamation point on the victory for the Tigers.
For Republic, getting back to the Final Four isn’t enough.
“You never take it for granted. I know this is the second time in two years, but you never know when you’re going to get back, so you’ve got to cherish it, you’ve got to enjoy the experience. But at the same time, we’re going up there to win two games. We’re not just satisfied to get up there again. We want to finish it off,” says Fisher.
“This group of seniors is very driven,” says Fisher. “We really haven’t talked about the whole ‘state thing’ this year. We’ve done a good job of not even talking about that. We haven’t talked about last year. But I’m sure in the back of their minds it’s something they’ve wanted to accomplish. For them to come through and play with toughness today was really a positive to see.”
Brock Yocum scored nine points for the Tigers. Canyon Smith had five. Chase Hoffmann and Dillen Ramsey each scored four. Jordan Kerr added two.
Borgia was led by Joseph Helfrich with 15 points. Luke DeLine had 13 for the Knights, who end their season at 19-9.
Republic advances to play Jefferson City Helias (22-7) Friday in the state semifinals at Mizzou Arena in Columbia. Helias beat last year’s Class 4 runner-up, Normandy, in the quarterfinals Saturday. Tipoff Friday is set for 7:45. We’ll have a live broadcast with the pregame about 15 minutes before the start of the game.
