BY JARED PORTER
An 18-4, game-ending run lifted Nevada to a 66-59 triumph over Webb City in the Kansas Army National Guard Invitational boys championship on Saturday at Frontenac High School.
A pair of free throws by Alex Gaskill gave the Cardinals (9-7) a seven-point lead with about five minutes remaining. From there, Nevada (12-5) knocked down a pair of 3-pointers and made 12 straight free throws while turnovers limited Webb City to just a pair of layups.
"We preach grit to these guys and we practice facing adversity," Nevada coach Shaun Gray said. "We relish those opportunities and we want them. Overall, it just took stops on the defensive end. Anytime you get stops and turnovers, it usually translates to points on the other end."
Sophomore Logan Applegate, named the tournament's most valuable player, scored 11 of his game-high 35 points in the fourth. The 6-foot-1 sharpshooter drained five triples in the first half. His last 12 points all came at the foul line.
"We have several guys who can score on this team, so that takes a lot of attention off of me at times," Applegate said. "I think that gave me some open shots in the first half. They started to focus on me a lot more in the second half, so I just tried to stay aggressive and do what I could at the freethrow line." "(Applegate) had the hot hand at the 3-point line in the first half, and then they tried to deny him the ball in the second half," Gray said. "But I thought we set him some nice screens to get him the ball and let him go to work. He's just a hard worker and he's becoming a clutch scorer for us. Nobody was bigger than him in crunch time tonight."
The Tigers' fourth-quarter surge came on the heels of a third period that saw Webb City score 19 straight points.
The Cardinals, who trailed by seven at halftime, held Nevada scoreless for the first six minutes of the third period. After Gaskill registered a steal and dished out an assist to Austin Bash for a routine layup with 2:17 left in the period, Webb City was up by eight.
"We were playing great defense at that point," Webb City coach Jason Horn said. "But then we were too loose with the ball in the fourth. We had a lead at the end of the game and we started to lose composure. We had guys taking shots with four guys on them instead of getting into sets and running some of the clock off.
"Poor clock management almost got us (Friday in the semifinals), and it certainly got us today. We've got to be better."
Gaskill led Webb City in scoring with 20 points and Terrell Kabala added 15.
Gaskill and Kabala joined Nevada's Applegate and Matthew Thompson on the all-tournament team.
Joplin Globe 01/20/2019 (Used by permission)