Guarded optimism: Caston’s backcourt keys semifinal win over DeMotte Christian

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Carson Harness Reed Sommers

FULTON — Logan Mollenkopf scored 13 points to lead five players in double figures as the host Caston boys basketball team held off DeMotte Christian 64-61 in a Class 1A, Sectional 50 semifinal Friday.

Reed Sommers added 12 points, Carson Harness and Lane Hook had 11 each, and Owen Chapman had 10 off the bench for Caston, who improved to 17-7.

Tanyon Bakker scored a game-high 25 for DeMotte Christian, including 10 in the fourth quarter. Tony Bos, a 6-6 senior guard, hit four 3-pointers and tallied 19.

Caston made 15 of 20 free throws, including 9 of 12 in the fourth quarter. DeMotte Christian was 5 for 6 from the line.

Caston might be best known for the versatile frontcourt duo of Mollenkopf and Hook, but the guard trio of Sommers, Harness and Chapman were critical Friday.

Prior to Friday, Harness had scored in double figures five times this season. Sommers had done it once. Chapman had never scored in double figures in a varsity game prior to Friday, but he knocked down a crucial 3-pointer with 6:19 left that made it 53-42.

Chapman also had a blocked shot on Brock Teune with 1:45 left.

“Just incredible balance,” Caston coach Carl Davis said. “When we get a scoring punch from them, we’re very, very hard to guard. Our best games this year have been when they’ve scored well. I thought they did a great job at getting paint touches and kicking out and making the right reads when they kicked out.”

Harness said the subject of the guards looking to score more came up during its 7 a.m. walk-through. Harness drove the left baseline for a layup to make it 59-53 with 1:12 left, putting the talk into action.

“We all just needed to be more aggressive,” Harness said. “During our walk-through, we just talked about driving when we needed to and taking open shots, and we just needed that aggressiveness to be there in order to get this win.”

Harness said the confidence that Davis has instilled in the guards is meaningful.

“It puts an immense amount of faith in us,” Harness said. “He has all the faith in the world that we can do this. And he’s talked about it over and over again, and he’s that coach that will let us play through unless he absolutely needs to stop it.”

Titus Terpstra and Bos hit treys on back-to-back possessions to cut the margin to 61-59 with 20.0 seconds left.

Chapman answered with two free throws with 18.9 seconds left.

Bakker drove for a layup, but Harness hit a free throw with 4.7 seconds left.

Sommers fouled Bakker with 2.7 seconds left. DeMotte Christian was not in the bonus, and they had no timeouts left. They had to inbound from the sideline near midcourt.

Bos then missed a step-back 35-footer well short as time expired.

“He’s a nightmare to guard,” Davis said of Bos. “I thought Gavin (Mollenkopf) did a great job on him of just constantly being there and making him work for everything. Obviously, other guys got switched off onto him. I thought we had pretty good recognition of where he was at. I thought we only really lost him completely once.”

Sommers, Harness and Chapman combined for 12 points in the first quarter as Caston jumped out to a 20-12 lead.

Bos went scoreless in the first quarter, but he and Bakker combined for 14 of the Knights’ 16 points in the second quarter. Still, Caston maintained an eight-point halftime lead at 36-28.

Neither Mollenkopf nor Hook had a field goal in the third quarter, but treys from Brodie Howard and Harness helped maintain a 46-40 lead going into the fourth.

Davis was asked about his team’s growing maturity. He used the endgame scenario as an example.

“I think we’ve seen that growth, especially in the last couple weeks,” Davis said. “To be honest, maybe even as recent as three weeks ago, I probably call a timeout late in those situations. They didn’t have a timeout left, so we’re kind of back and forth on it. So we’re in a situation where we’re giving a foul. They’re out of timeouts, so we’re letting the ball roll around a little bit to try to use some clock up. Those are situational things that I probably didn’t trust them a few weeks ago. But they just keep showing their maturity and showing they understand. They’ve been in these situations now with most of these guys playing their second or third year of varsity. And to be able to trust them in that situation and not use that timeout just shows you their maturity and growth they’ve shown.”

Caston will face three-time defending sectional champion Tri-County in the sectional final at 7:30 p.m. tonight. Tri-County eliminated No. 8 West Central 55-49 in overtime in Friday’s other semifinal.

Caston edged Tri-County 47-44 in Wolcott Jan. 31 in their regular season meeting.

Tri-County has seven seniors. One of them is 6-7 big man Clayton Atkinson.

“It’s going to be a war,” Davis said. “They’re really good in the paint. The Atkinson kid is an absolute load.”

Caston 64, DeMotte Christian 61

CASTON (64) (17-7)

Reed Sommers 5 1-2 12, Carson Harness 4 1-2 11, Logan Mollenkopf 4 4-6 13, Gavin Mollenkopf 1 0-0 2, Lane Hook 3 5-6 11, Owen Chapman 2 4-4 10, Brodie Howard 2 0-0 5

TEAM: 21 15-20 64

DEMOTTE CHRISTIAN (61) (20-5)

Ben Eisses 1 0-0 3, Tony Bos 6 3-4 19, Tanyon Bakker 11 2-2 25, Nate Rottier 1 0-0 2, Titus Terpstra 2 0-0 6, Connor Zylstra 0 0-0 0, Brock Teune 3 0-0 6

TEAM: 24 5-6 61

Three-point field goals:

Caston 7 (Chapman 2, Harness 2, Sommers, L. Mollenkopf, Howard),

DeMotte Christian 8 (Bos 4, Terpstra 2, Eisses, Bakker)

Total fouls: Caston 11, DeMotte Christian 17

Turnovers: Caston 6, DeMotte Christian 9

Score by quarters

Caston 20 16 10 18 – 64

DeMotte Christian 12 16 12 21 – 61