POLAND — When most of your boys’ basketball team has played a role in three consecutive football state championships, and when you’ve recovered from a 2-9 start to make the hoop tournament for the first time in eight years, there is no such thing as playoff pressure.
No. 9 Oak Hill looked less than awestruck by the experience for most of the first quarter on Tuesday. Once No. 8 Poland settled in, however, the rest of the night belonged to the Knights in a 72-48 Class B South preliminary win at Derek Pierce Gym.
“They got into the paint a little bit,” Poland coach Tyler Tracy said. “They crashed the boards hard. They came out and smacked us in the mouth a little bit. We had to get that taken care of pretty quick.”
John Fossett threw the haymakers in response for Poland (9-10), to the tune of 32 points and 12 rebounds. Nate Chouinard chipped in 14 points. Patrick Kuklinski coupled nine points with seven assists.
Poland returns to the quarterfinals at Portland Expo for the first time since its regional championship season of 2014. The Knights tackle top-seeded Lake Region at 4 p.m. Saturday.
“Last year was definitely a little bit of a disappointment,” Fossett said. “We had a good team. I don’t know what happened. We knew we wanted to get back there.”
Marcus Bailey led Oak Hill (6-13) with 12 points. Jonah Martin added 10. Connor Elwell had nine. The Raiders led 10-6 out of the gate before a 3-pointer from Chouinard and five consecutive points from Fossett sent the Knights on their way.
Oak Hill nudged within one, 22-21, on an Austin Noble 3-pointer with 3:48 to go in the half.
Poland countered with nine unanswered points — again including five down low from Fossett — and led 37-26 at the half.
“The last two minutes of the first half kind of did us in,” Oak Hill coach Tom Smith said. “They got on a little run. We didn’t handle the pressure the way we should have.”
Fossett notched 19 in the first half and added eight more in the third period. Jared Martel and Kurtis Leighton each knocked down a 3-pointer in that stanza, staking Poland to a 56-40 advantage.
“We got the ball up the floor, got our legs going, and then the inside-out game started happening,” Tracy said.
Despite its hot start, Oak Hill shot 19-for-59 (32 percent) from the field. Chouinard and Greg Leighton led the Knights with three steals apiece.
“It was a great feeling,” Smith said of crashing the tournament party. “The seniors really buckled down. The last four or five games, we were in most of them. We set ourselves up and did what we needed to do.”
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