The Scottsbluff Bearcats won their opening round game of the Class B State Tournament on Thursday night, knocking off Omaha Roncalli 58-51 at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln.
The Bearcats got a team high 16 points from Rylee Meininger, who scored of eight of those points in the deciding fourth quarter.
Freshman Tre Boswell connected on two monster fourth quarter three point shots and finished with nine points in the win (all three baskets were threes).
In an overall team effort on both ends of the court Scottsbluff got big shots from different kids and plenty of key stops and big rebounds defensively that helped spur the three seed into the state semifinal finals on Friday afternoon.
Carter Reisig drilled a huge fourth quarter three and finished with eight points while Nate Kelley was the second Scottsbluff player in double figures with 13, 10 of which came in the first half.
Roncalli went to a triangle and two defense at times to try and take Kelley and Meininger away and Scottsbluff got big makes from the others.
One of the key plays of the game came at the start of the fourth quarter; with Roncalli leading by four they got a live ball turnover near the top of the key and Crimson Pride star Brady McGill, who scored 23 points, went the other way with a clear path to the basket and missed a wide open dunk. Scottsbluff immediately went to the other end and scored and then turned it into a mini 6-0 run to start to take back some control of the game.
Sophomore Keon Delgado was big with toughness and boards in the paint and also scored six points in second quarter flurry.
With the win Scottsbluff will face No. 2 seed Norris on Friday afternoon at 2:15 pm MT and we’ll have coverage on 107.3 The Trail & KHYYfm.com starting at approximately 2 pm.
Norris won their opener in overtime of Bennington 61-56. In the other first round games Skutt battled back to down Elkhorn 69-61 while top seed Crete knocked off Platteview 43-40.
