The final day of the Centralia Invitational included the Van-Far and Centralia boys teams trying to close the tournament with a winning record. Van-Far won its second straight game with a 62-48 victory against Class 4 Boonville in the fifth-place game while Centralia fell just short 62-54 against Moberly in the third-place game.
Van-Far (4-1) led Boonville (3-2) by as much as 20 points sometimes and as few as about 10 points because of an offense backed by solid 3-point shooting. At the forefront of that was sophomore Pacey Reading, who scored a career-high 27 points while hitting five 3-pointers and recording a double-double with at least 10 rebounds. Reading scored a total of 16 points in the Indians' previous two games. Gage Gibson (who was made the Class 1 all-state football team as an athlete recently) added 10 points and three 3-pointers, Evan Utterback had nine points and all-tournament team member Nikos Connaway (averaged around 15.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 8 assists in three tournament games) had his lowest-scoring Invitational game at seven points but finished with 12 assists to be the floor's best facilitator. Evan Bishop led Boonville with 19 points to make the all-tournament team and Dakota Troost followed with 16 points.
"We knew we were going to see 1-3-1 (zone defense)," head coach Pat Connaway said. "Most of the time, it gives us problems so we worked on it before we got on the bus today and talked about spreading out and working the gaps."
"In a zone defense, you're going to get more open shots not in the paint," Reading said. "Nikos found me, Gage found me and they got the ball to me and I hit shots."
Centralia (4-3) had a 30-26 lead against Moberly (3-2) at halftime after Centralia quarterback Cullen Bennett (who made the Class 3 all-state football team recently as a punter) threw a full-court pass to Elliott McCoy for the transition layup. Moberly knocked down 10 3-pointers, including five as part of 22 points from all-tournament team member Kish Jacobs Jr., and were 6-for-10 from the free-throw line in the second half to gain separation down the stretch. Noah Kropf led Centralia with 17 points and six rebounds, Cullen Bennett followed with 11 points and five rebounds, and Beau Hatton had seven points and five rebounds. Kropf and Logan Rosenfelder (two 3-pointers vs Moberly) were named to the all-tournament team along with Jacobs Jr. and Tyrese Rucker (nine points vs Centralia).
Look for the full stories in the Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023, edition of the Mexico Ledger and on the website on the same day.
