Elite passing propels Warriors to Class 1A state semifinals

Mar. 6—CARBONDALE — Josiah Hortin was all smiles Monday evening within the bowels of the Banterra Center.

Even with a healthy cut still fresh along the end of his right eyebrow. Blood still pooling and slowly sliding down the side of the Tuscola junior's face. It was going to take a lot more than a mere flesh wound to break Hortin's mood he felt on the Southern Illinois University campus.

"After the game, everybody stormed the court, and I fell. Unfortunately, got on the bottom of it," Hortin said. "But I got pulled out quick, so it was all good. I'm good now."

The court storming became necessary for the Warriors' student section when Hortin and his boys' basketball teammates delivered the school a Class 1A state tournament berth.

Tuscola dashed out to a 17-5 first-quarter lead and rarely allowed Mounds Meridian to pull within single digits all night, culminating in a 74-53 super-sectional victory against the Bobcats to give the Warriors a realistic chance to win a state title inside State Farm Center in Champaign later this week.

"Yeah, I'll be playing on Thursday," said a laughing Hortin, referencing that day's 11:45 a.m. state semifinal games versus Scales Mound on Lou Henson Court, a roughly 30-minute drive from Tuscola High School.

"It's huge," Hortin continued. "We knew we had a goal coming in (postseason) time where we had to win eight games. We've got two more left to win, and I think if we just keep executing and keep playing hard, I think we can get there."

The Warriors (30-6) haven't qualified for a boys' basketball state tournament since 1989 when they advanced to the Class A quarterfinals.

That alone is a noteworthy achievement. But Tuscola coach Justin Bozarth, in his sixth season leading the program, added some additional context after celebrating with his boys both on Banterra Center's court and in one of its locker rooms.

"Every day, I go back to my very first year. We won seven basketball games," Bozarth said of a 2017-18 roster that finished 7-19. "Those guys laid the foundation to years later we're here because they wanted to turn this program around."

Bozarth also credited last season's squad that advanced to a 1A sectional championship game before falling to a different Meridian, out of Macon, in a double-overtime heartbreaker. A lineup that included Jalen Quinn, who now is a freshman on the Loyola Chicago men's basketball team. But there was only joy for this season's Warriors on Monday night, roughly three hours south from their home base in Douglas County.

And not nearly as much sweating or nail-biting for their supporters compared to Friday night's 72-68 sectional championship triumph against Altamont that took four overtimes and a 15-point comeback to complete.

Tuscola had Mounds Meridian (24-13) behind early and often, starting on the Warriors' first offensive possession.

Junior Jordan Quinn — Jalen's younger brother — lofted a long, cross-court, backdoor pass to sophomore Parker James, who took to the skies and completed a layup with his feet off the ground.

It marked the first two of James' team-high 25 points.

"Nobody really knows (who's going to lead us in scoring)," the 6-foot-3 James said. "We have a very versatile team that you don't know who's going to go off or have a good game in scoring. It could be anybody in the lineup, really."

Quinn's toss to James also started an extremely positive trend of Tuscola logging an assist on a made field goal.

The Warriors generated 12 assists on 15 made field goals across the first two quarters, compared with the Bobcats' one assist on seven makes.

Tuscola didn't relent despite leading the entire 16 minutes after the break, either, winding up with a robust 25 assists on 31 field goals. Hortin's eight assists paced the Warriors, who added six from Quinn, five from sophomore Kam Sweetnam, four from senior Colton Musgrave and two from James.

"We knew pressure beats pressure," said Hortin, echoing a phrase Bozarth uttered just minutes prior. "(Mounds Meridian) came at us with pressing all game. We moved the ball well, got layups and that's how we beat it."

This allowed four Tuscola players to finish in double figures scoring on the night. Sweetnam (14 points), Quinn (12 points) and senior Chris Boyd (11 points) joined James in making Tuscola a well-rounded offensive unit on Monday night. Hortin wasn't far behind with eight points.

"We talked about it with Kam and Josiah — we've got good ball-handlers, they're low to the ground (and) they're slippery," Bozarth said. "As soon as those guys decided, 'I'm going to attack pressure with pressure' ... we just kept attacking. We weren't going to try to run the clock out."

Mounds Meridian occasionally made things a little more snug on the scoreboard.

Some effective defensive pressure in the third quarter caused a couple Warriors turnovers and allowed the Bobcats to trim their deficit to 48-36. A few baskets from Mounds Meridian senior Tristen Mackins pulled his team within 56-47 in the fourth quarter as well.

Both times, Tuscola had an even bigger response. And the Warriors found significantly more offensive balance in their lineup than coach David Davis' Bobcats, who saw senior Roderic Gatewood Jr. score 23 of their first 38 points. Gatewood ended with a game-high 26 points, though he was limited to just three points in the fourth quarter. James, meanwhile, tallied 10 of his points in the last quarter. That included a pair of free throws before checking out of the game with a little more than a minute remaining.

"Hitting them, I was just like, 'We qualified for state,'" James said. "It was a good feeling."

Both James and Hortin sounded nonchalant when asked how the Warriors managed to handle the pressure of a super-sectional matchup inside a Division I college arena that can hold up to 8,300 fans.

"We stuck to what we do every game," James said. "We just played it like any other game."

"Altamont game, that really prepared us," Hortin added, "because that's a small gym packed all the way up. When you come into an environment like this, the noise doesn't really get to you as much."

Another larger venue is on deck for Tuscola, that being the home of Illinois basketball.

Thursday's state semifinal game with Scales Mound (32-5), which defeated Chicago Marshall 60-56 on Monday night in a DeKalb Super-Sectional game, pits a first-time state semifinalist against a squad that placed third in last year's 1A state tournament.

It might be difficult to make the former Assembly Hall as loud as Altamont's gymnasium was this past Friday night. But that doesn't mean the Warriors' fans can't try, the way Bozarth sees it.

Even if he needs to dig into his wallet to make it happen.

"I would love to see our elementary teachers and middle school just bus all (the kids) up and have a field day," Bozarth said, "but I'm afraid if they do that I'm going to owe several Cast Iron (Pub) gift cards to our elementary teachers to thank them for that."