Pinckneyville takes Johnston City's best shot at regional

ANNA -- The most dangerous type of underdog in the postseason is one with a lot of seniors.
Johnston City High School's boys basketball team had eight seniors on its roster in the Anna-Jonesboro 2A Regional program, which explains easily why the Indians gave Pinckneyville all it wanted before falling 63-49 in the tournament's semifinals Tuesday night at Union Hall Gymnasium.
Johnston City had already reached one goal a night earlier by beating Vienna, 57-52, to not only earn the right to face Pinckneyville but assured the Indians of their first winning season since 2014 and just second since 2002.
The Indians, who finished at 17-16 in the second season for head coach Scott Burzynski, led most of the first quarter before Pinckneyville's Dre Scott put in a stickback to tie it at 12 going into the second period.
"Our kids competed all night," Burzynski said. "They played really well and I'm so proud of them. Obviously we know what Pinckneyville represents. Our guys guarded almost the entire game and I'll be honest it was fun to play at this level.
"Our guys didn't back down. The thought coming in was can we survive that first three or four minutes when they put the pressure on and try to take you out of your game. And I thought overall we did a very good job of handling that."
Pinckneyville, which played again without leading scorer Dawson Yates again as he recovers from a back injury, won the opening tip and missed four shots. The Indians struck first with Chase Selby scoring a rebound basket.
Selby scored again to put the Indians up 8-5, and yet again to give them a 12-10 lead, then manchild freshman Austin Brown had a huge block before Scott's tying basket.
But the Panthers began slowly pulling away in the second quarter, even if they never fully put the Indians down for the count. The separation was mainly due to one of Pinckneyville's own two seniors, Dylan Houghland, having a career night.
Houghland hit four huge shots in the second quarter to help Pinckneyville push out to a 28-18 lead, although Johnston City got as close as six on a shot from Josh McPherson before free throws from Hunter Riggins put the margin at 30-22 going into halftime.
"We felt good at halftime," Burzynski said. "The guys were feeling good and saying, 'This is a fun way to play ball.'"
Pinckneyville's pressure started to take full effect in the third quarter. A three-point play by Houghland made it 43-28 and two free throws by Houghland gave the Panthers a 48-32 lead going into the final frame.
Houghland finished with 23 points and went 10 of 11 from the charity stripe on a night when Pinckneyville went 24 of 28 as a team, including 11 of 12 in the final eight minutes as Johnston City refused to throw in the towel.
The Indians got as close as 10 in the fourth quarter on a 3-pointer by Selby that made it 57-47 with about a minute remaining. Selby, one of those eight seniors, finished with 18 points.
"Johnston City played extremely hard," said Pinckneyville coach Bob Waggoner. "They guarded extremely well. I thought our kids battled through a tough night down here. We didn't shoot the ball very well but we did make our free throws and got stops when we needed to. We found a way to get the win."
Although the Indians have a long list of seniors, the Panthers have just Houghland and Kelton Linze in the 12th grade.
"For a lot of our kids this was the first time they've been in this situation at a regional," Waggoner said. "I looked out there and Johnston City had four seniors and a freshman that looks like a senior on the floor."
Houston Hall added 11 points and Brown finished with 10 for the Indians, who went 14 of 16 at the foul line and committed just seven turnovers. Dylan Fischer chipped in six points.
Houghland was Pinckneyville's only player in double figures. Hunter Riggins, Grant Tanner and Scott all had eight, while Ben Restoff and Duke Riggins both had six and Linze put in four.
The Panthers improved to 25-5 and moved into Friday's championship game against either Du Quoin or Anna-Jonesboro.
Waggoner didn't know if Yates, who went over 1,000 career points this season as a junior, will be available for that game or not.
"We're still waiting. It depends on how he feels," Waggoner said. "I'm proud of how our kids have adjusted. We've battled through it and we're still competitive and we're playing extremely hard. That's all you can ask. We've had a lot of different kids step up."