Hallsville’s Kolton Garner has proven to be a matchup nightmare for opposing teams all season.

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This was the case Monday for the Centralia boys as their season came to end with a 59-39 loss to the Indians in the first round of the Class 4 District 8 tournament in Moberly. The Panthers displayed defensive toughness through one half, leading 20-19, but Garner finished with 25 points, eight rebounds and four steals to lead Hallsville to its second victory against Centralia in as many games.

Head coach Scott Humphrey said Hallsville (20-7) tries to wear teams down with its big roster rotation, which happened to the Panthers on Tuesday. The 6-foot-5 guard Garner was at the top of Centralia’s list of concerns.

“You guard him with a bigger guy, and he’ll go around you or pull you out. Guard him with the smaller guy, he goes inside and scores,” Humphrey said. “They’ve got a lot of guys around him that can shoot the basketball so you can’t really help off. We were trying to contain him as best as we could and not give everybody else theirs. We felt like, if they start having two, three or four guys knock down outside shots, the 3-ball is a hard thing for us to come back from.”

Humphrey said it is difficult to match up with Hallsville’s firepower as was the case in the first meeting with the Indians a week ago in a 68-42 loss. Hallsville drained seven 3-pointers in the first half of that game before finishing with four 3-pointers through four quarters in the rematch.

Centralia kept Garner as the only scorer in a 10-6 first quarter taken by Centralia (14-12). That didn’t last as Isaac Stinson scored seven points in the second quarter as part of his 11 points and six rebounds and Cameron Cox and Zach Jouret each hit 3-pointers in a 21-8 third quarter for the Indians. Logan Rosenfelder was Centralia’s top scorer with seven points along with five rebounds, Jack Romine followed with six points and Travis Brooks hit two 3-pointers.

“We missed some shots we needed to make, and they hit some tough shots,” Humphrey said. “I thought we guarded them extremely tough all game. We kind of struggled to score at times all year. We knew that if we went into the ground like that, it was going to be tough to make up from.”

Centralia was only able to halt a 10-0 Hallsville run at the end of the third quarter after Noah Kropf heaved a 3-pointer in transition off the glass into the net at the buzzer, making it 40-28. Senior Jack Romine picked two steals within seconds in the fourth quarter as the margin rested around 20 points.

Still, some of Centralia’s other seniors made plays in their final games as Panthers. Austin Orth already had scored in the third quarter, Benji Chick and Mason Presley each knocked down 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, and Boen Zimmerman finished with six rebounds and three blocks after earning a Clarence Cannon Conference honorable mention — Rosenfelder and Cullen Bennett were selected as well.

With this group, Centralia finished second in the Clarence Cannon Conference and won several single-digit games to finish above a 500 record, which Humphrey said was above public expectations.

“These seven seniors have really been mainstay guys the last four years,” Humphrey said. “They’re going to be great men. They’re going to be great husbands and dads and members of society. That’s what you want.”