Before the start of postseason play, the Platte County boys’ basketball team (21-4) let it rain from downtown on its senior night with 14 made 3-pointers on Feb. 24.
Platte County junior Judah Vignery, above, made four of the Pirates 14 3-pointers in the senior night win on Feb. 24.
In the Pirates’ regular season finale, Platte County entered the night one win shy of 20 total victories with a chance to surpass the 20-win barrier in consecutive seasons for the first time in program history. Coming off a 79-62 victory over Smithville (20-6) on Feb. 22 to give the Pirates back-to-back Blue Division conference titles, Platte County throttled Belton (13-14) 76-55.
“It feels great because it was another 20-win season, which is what we wanted to do from the outset,” Platte County Head Coach Rick Hodge said. “We set many goals going into the season that we wanted to achieve, and one was to win conference, which they did the other night, and tonight we were playing for the seniors, and they wanted to get another win season like they did last year; that was the motivation.”
It was a competitive opening half that saw two ties and seven lead changes with Platte County taking a 31-30 margin at the break when Brody Fulk knocked down a free throw with less than one second left. After Fulk and Jarett Mueller converted on a trey in the opening quarter, Jace Trimble sank a shot from downtown and Judah Vignery and Boston Wahlert combined for three 3-pointers in the second period.
“With the zone defense they were in, it took us a little while to understand what they were taking away, and we kept running through some different offenses. It wasn’t until we went through some different offenses in the second half that our guys were a lot more comfortable and started to be a lot more relaxed with what we wanted to do,” Hodge said.
After Belton banked in a 3-pointer to regain a 37-35 lead with 5:46 left in the third quarter, Platte County closed out the period on a 19 to 4 run and never looked back. The Pirates caught fire in the frame, sinking five shots from behind the arc, including Vignery’s trey right ahead of the buzzer.
Mueller made two shots from deep and was fouled behind the arc – making two of the three attempts – and Trimble added his second 3-pointer of the night in the third quarter. Platte County didn’t let up in the final eight minutes and shared the ball as seven players scored in the frame.
“We are able to do that; Judah gave us a spark off the bench sticking the threes that he hit, and a lot of times that is contagious. When you have post and big players hitting threes, it’s very difficult for our opponent and not even that, but it started to open up the middle on defense and we started to attack the paint and when we do that, we are hard to guard,” Hodge said.
Fifteen seconds into the fourth quarter, Vignery sank his fourth shot from behind the arc before Chandavian Bradley and Eli Nelson became the sixth and seventh Platte County players to make a 3-pointer. When the night came to an end, the postseason officially began, and Coach Hodge told the Platte County Citizen what the Pirates are going to have to do to keep moving on.
“We are going to have to tighten up the defense; I think our defense has to continue to improve and hopefully we aren’t done improving in that area. Offensively, they have to continue to share it and find the weaknesses and mismatches and follow the game plan that we have and if we do that, then I am confident with the guys that we have,” Hodge said.
The Pirates took care of business in the opening round of districts, taking down Kansas City’s East (2-24) with an 83-57 win on Feb. 26. Platte County advanced to the Class 5 District 8 Semifinals against Lincoln College Prep (19-8) on March 1 at Winnetonka High School.