Oakville tops CBC in overtime

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Josh Noblitt got some grief from his Oakville teammates after not scoring in the Tigers’ quarterfinal victory against Parkway West.

But the senior guard made up for it during the Class 5 semifinal game against CBC on Thursday night at Mizzou Arena, making six 3-pointers, including a long one with 6 seconds remaining in regulation to tie the score.

Oakville, which went more than five minutes without scoring before Noblitt’s tying 3-pointer, was then able to pull out a 47-44 victory in overtime to earn a spot in Saturday night’s championship game.

“Our goal wasn’t just to get here,” said Noblitt, who scored a game-high 18 points. “It was to get to the game we are at now. I think we kind of had an advantage. We were here last year. We knew what the whole thing was, the hype. Even coming out of the tunnel is just a totally different atmosphere and we were ready for it.”

Oakville (27-4), which finished fourth at state a year ago in the team’s first trip to the final four, has now won 17 consecutive games. The Tigers will next play Springfield Hillcrest (24-7), a 50-41 winner over Park Hill South on Thursday, in the Class 5 championship game at 8:05 p.m. Saturday.

“Noblitt had a heckuva night shooting the basketball,” CBC coach Bob McCormack said. “We didn’t find him at the end of regulation there. When you stick around long enough like I have, those type of things happen. He hit a heckuva shot on us. They were just better tonight.”

CBC (22-9), which will play Park Hill South (21-10) in the Class 5 third-place game at 1:30 p.m. today, was making its first appearance at state since 1997. The Cadets got 15 points from Seth Jackson and 11 from Dominic Kacich, but struggled to get the ball inside to 6-foot-10 center Ryan Pierson (15 rebounds) and made just three of 17 3-point attempts (17.6 percent).

“Our defense was just really solid overall,” Oakville coach Nick Traxler said. “I thought we helped each other tremendously. We closed out on their shooters. We just didn’t give them a whole lot of breathing room. We did the things we needed to do down the stretch to be successful.”

CBC led 12-4 after one quarter, 20-19 at halftime and 34-33 after three quarters. The Cadets trailed briefly in the fourth quarter but led 41-38 with 14.2 seconds left.

Oakville, which hadn’t scored since a jumper by Torraino Hellems (14 points) with 5:35 remaining, drew up one final play and Traxler asked Noblitt where he wanted to shoot from.

“I said, ‘Anywhere, I’ll hit it from anywhere,’” Noblitt said. “I pointed at the board like in between the 3-point line and the half-court mark. He said, ‘alright, that’s what we’ll do then.’ Then I came out and hit a big shot.”