BLOOMFIELD -- The hosts of the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament turned a day filled with expected outcomes on its head.
Tenth-seeded Bloomfield outlasted No. 7 Portageville 63-55 in double overtime Tuesday to give the first round of the 61st annual tournament its first upset.
"It's big," Bloomfield coach Brandon Crook said. "We came in as a little bit of an underdog as far as seeding go. It's been about a week and a half since we've played so we just wanted to come out and give a good showing. We got a bonus in picking up the win."
Like most double-overtime games, big shots and missed chances littered this one until the Wildcats pulled away at the free-throw line.
Bloomfield (6-2) trailed for most of the night and fell behind by as many as nine with just over four minutes to go in regulation. From that point on the hosts rattled off an 11-0 run to grab a 48-46 lead. The big shot came from Travis McCollough, who drained a spot-up three with three seconds left.
"I had a timeout but deciding to let it play out and see what we could get out of it," Crook said. "We got lucky and things worked out for us."
McCollough's shot had the feel of a potential dagger and the game should have ended there. But Portageville answered with some magic of their own to send the game into the first overtime.
Portageville's Ian Torrey out-jumped everyone to pull down an inbound pass, turned and fired off a desperation three from just inside the halfcourt line. His shot fell well short but teammate Lamar Alexander was there for the uncontested rebound and put-in as time expired to tie things up at 48-all.
"We got caught watching that play," Crook said. "We didn't go and try to rebound at all. We were just hoping that [Torrey] didn't make that shot. That came back and almost bit us in the long run."
The two teams managed to trade a bucket apiece in the first overtime. Portageville had two chances to put Bloomfield away towards the end, but Daniel Carter's attempt rimmed off and a last-second tip-in from Torrey also went awry to keep things knotted at 50.
Free throws ruled the second overtime and Bloomfield was their keeper. The Wildcats went 10 for 12 from the charity stripe and hit their first six to pull away by as much as nine with just under a minute to play. Five-straight points from Torrey, who finished with a team-high 19 points and 17 rebounds, sliced Bloomfield's lead to four at the 37 second mark, but four more free throws by McCollough, who finished with 15 points overall, sealed the win.
"We were fortunate there because we missed some late that would have helped us earlier in the game," Crook said. "But, we ended up hitting some late that ended up sealing the deal for us. I always tell my guys that free throws don't win all games, but they win the close ones and it could have went either way for us on that."
Portageville (4-2) led for the first 15 minutes until Phillips drained a three to put the Wildcats ahead by three. Bloomfield went into the half with a 25-24 lead. The Bulldogs quickly rebounded, however, scoring eight straight to regain the advantage to start the third quarter.
With their nine-point lead in hand and with four minutes to play, Portageville elected to spread the floor and stall. That decision led to four turnovers and left the Bulldogs watching as their lead slipped away.
After going ahead 46-37 with 4:08 to go in regulation, Portageville was outscored 26-11 the rest of the way.
"We made some defensive adjustments to try and make someone other than Torrey get us," Crook said. "I thought we did a good job with that and rebounding late to help in the second overtime."
Bloomfield's win pushes the Wildcats into the championship quarterfinals against No. 2 Hayti Wednesday at 7 p.m. They'll try to make the semifinal round for the second year in a row after finishing fourth last year.
"Hopefully this will give us a little momentum," Crook said. "We're on the side of the bracket we want to be on right now and hopefully we can continue playing well. Whatever happens happens from here on out, but we're going to show up every night and be ready to play."