SM Northwest reserves a spot at state with win over Olathe North

From the beginning of the season, the senior-heavy Shawnee Mission Northwest boys basketball team has had its eyes on a spot in the state tournament.

With a 61-44 victory against Olathe North on Saturday night in the substate championships, Shawnee Mission Northwest turned that goal into a reality and ended a state tournament dry spell that dated back to the 2008-09 season.

“I’m so excited for those kids,” Cougar head coach Mike Rose said. “They wanted to do this so bad. So I am glad that we were able to do it and do it at home.”

The Eagles scored the first points of the game, but over the final 10 possessions of the first quarter, the Cougars went on a 17-1 run that included seven points from senior Keaton Cross.

The Eagles finally found their rhythm in the second quarter and put together a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to 29-23 at halftime. Then senior Julian Winton cut the lead to four with a basket out of the break, but the Eagles could never get closer than that. The Cougars finished the game on a 12-4 run.

“We jumped out with a lot of intensity from the start and then they brought some back, but we knew that we had 16 minutes left on our home floor and we weren’t about to lose that, so we showed up to play in the second half,” Cross said.

Rose pointed to transition offense as one of the keys to the Cougars’ runs. In the first quarter, they scored eight points in transition but were held in check over the next two periods. In the fourth quarter, they made up for it with a one-minute stretch that produced six more points in transition.

Cross, who tied a game-high with 15 points, leads a class of eight seniors that makes up two thirds of the Shawnee Mission Northwest roster. He was joined in double figures by fellow seniors Jake Horner, Brady Skeens and Warren Specht.

Winton was one of three Eagles to finish in double digits. He had 15 points while RJ Smith and Josh Moore added 12 and 11 points respectively.

This story was originally published March 8, 2014 at 10:45 PM with the headline "SM Northwest reserves a spot at state with win over Olathe North."