PIEDMONT -- Twin Rivers and Doniphan mirrored each other for much of the game. Hot at the same time, cold at the same time.
The Royals maintained a slight lead throughout the second half and went 13 for 17 at the foul line in the fourth quarter to hold off some late Doniphan 3-pointers and win 66-59 in the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament semifinals.
Twin Rivers will play top seed Neelyville in the championship at 8 p.m. Friday at the Bess Activity Center at Three Rivers College.
"Against a team like (Doniphan) you have to make some shots, too, and we did throughout the night," Twin Rivers coach Seth McBroom said. "When they had all their big guys in there in that zone, we had to get out and push a little bit and find some easier shots because it is hard to score against their length."
Doniphan (9-15), down nine early in the fourth quarter, reached the bonus with just under seven minutes left in the game. Twin Rivers had two fouls in the second half at the time.
On the following possession, Doniphan's Klay Barton was fouled on a 3. He missed the third free throw, but Trent Lippoldt got a putback to make it a seven-point game.
Doniphan, though, turned it over on its next three possessions and went cold shooting after that. Twin Rivers, however, went cold too and failed to put the game away.
"We work on time and score a lot and our kids are decent at controlling the pace, but sometimes you just have to put one in," McBroom said. "Or you have to have that score at the right time and that stop at the right time and you have to do whatever it takes to do those things."
Barton's corner 3 with three minutes to go was Doniphan's first basket in more than three minutes and cut the lead to seven points.
With the Dons fouling, Barton, who finished with 21 points, made a 3 and Lippoldt got a putback off a missed 3 to cut the lead to four points with 34 seconds left.
Twin Rivers (11-11) inbounded the ball to Zach Hargraves and he raced past halfcourt before drawing an intentional foul. He made both, and with the Royals keeping the ball because of the intentional foul, Jamie Robards was fouled and he made both to put the Royals up eight with 25 seconds left.
Doniphan, though, made another 3.
The Royals inbounded the ball and were able to burn the clock down to eight seconds before the next foul and time expired on the Dons' next possession.
Hayden Thomas led Twin Rives with 18 points while Robards had 15 and Hargraves got 12. The three were a combined 14 for 17 at the foul line.
"We left the high post wide open a few too many times. Once you get the ball into the high post there are too many options," said Doniphan assistant coach Mark Blackwell, who was coaching in place of head coach Logan Nutt. "So we just have to do a better job of keeping the ball out of the high post."
Blackwell said Nutt was absent because "We have some issues going on at school they are trying to work out right now," and that the team responded well to Blackwell coaching.
"I thought they played hard. I thought defensively they went at it 110 (percent). There's a few things we need to clean up, especially on defense. Too much ball watching," he said.
Lippoldt had 15 points for Doniphan and Jake Eddington got 11.
After a slow start where the score was tied at 2-all after four minutes, Hayden Thomas sank 3-pointers on consecutive possessions from the same spot in front of the Doniphan bench, then Barton hit a 3 from the top of the key to keep Doniphan within a point.
Twin Rivers went ahead by six early in the second quarter, its biggest lead of the first half, before Doniphan tied the game for the first time since those two opening buckets.
Barton drove and got fouled twice. He got a lone free throw on the first trip, but a three-point play on the second. Then Eddington drew a foul and made both free throws and Barton scored off a turnover to give Doniphan the lead.
It was the first of four lead changes over the next minute.
"We had to do a specialized defense on Barton. We mixed in some zone and some man, but really we just had to get down and guard and get some stops in the half court," McBroom said.
Ledbetter's bucket put the Royals back in front for the rest of the half. After he scored, Adam Woodard sank a wide open 3 for the Royals.
Doniphan was down by four with a minute to go and held for the final shot, but Barton's long jumper missed.
Twin Rivers pushed its lead to nine points in the opening minutes of the second half.
With three minutes left in the third quarter, Robards swished a 3 to give the Royals the first double-digit lead of the game.
"Teams are going to get hot and get cold. When you make a few mistakes you have to keep your head up and keep fighting," Blackwell said.
Lippoldt later got a three-point play and the Dons forced a five-second call before Robards beat the buzzer on a putback to make it a nine point game going into the fourth quarter.