Hayden Thomas reaches 1,500 career points, Twin Rivers defeats Neelyville in OFC Tournament final

Twin Rivers played nearly a perfect game in the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament championship against Neelyville.

The Royals pulled away from the Tigers in the third quarter for a 60-32 win to avenge last year’s OFC Tournament championship loss to the Tigers. The win is the Royals’ fourth tournament championship in the past six years.

Twin Rivers and Neelyville split their regular-season meetings with winning by three points in the Holcomb Invitational and Neelyville earning 17-point win at home on Jan. 18.

The Royals were taking advantage of a short-handed Neelyville squad that was without Curtis Fowler, whose size and presence inside is an asset in rebounding and on defense.

Hayden Thomas led the Royals with 22 points on 10 makes from the floor and scored his 1,500th points for Twin Rivers to go along with the tournament win. The moment was especially sweet for Thomas since his grandmother was able to attend the game and it was her 74th birthday.

“I really don’t have the words for it,” Thomas said. “I’ve been asking coach the past couple of games if I’m pretty close, and he says yeah, you know, smiling. And tonight, he looked at me after we won and was smiling, and I shook my head. It was just a meaningful moment because it’s my grandma’s birthday today and she got to come. She turned 74, and it was a great moment, and I wanted to get that win and the 1,500 points for her.”

Twin Rivers stole the momentum heading into halftime when Hayden Thomas buried a step-back 3-pointer in the face of his defender to put the Royals up six. Brent Trout leaked out after Allen Hendrix came away with a steal, and Hendrix heaved it down the court for an easy finish by Trout.

Hendrix almost made the Royals faithful erupt when he stole the inbounds pass, but he missed a layup in the final seconds. Twin Rivers still had their largest lead of the game at that point with a 28-20 advantage.

“We talk about trying to win the last two minutes of every quarter, and I think it was just a huge jumpstart for us. … It kind of kept the momentum going for us in the third,” Twin Rivers coach Seth McBroom said. “

That momentum stayed with the Royals in the third quarter as they began to pull away. They outscored the top-seeded Tigers 10-1 to start the second half and jump out to a 17-point lead. The duo of Thomas and Hargraves served as the catalyst for the run. Hargraves initiated a fast break with a steal, dribbled down the court and flung a no-look pass to a wide-open Tanner Ledbetter for an easy layup, giving Twin Rivers its first double-figure lead of the night.

“I realized my shot wasn’t falling, so I was keeping my head up a little bit more and looking for others because I know Hayden was on fire. I was always looking for him, and I’m usually always using my peripheral looking for someone cutting,” Hargraves said.

Hargraves dished another dime to Ledbetter on the next possession for the same result. Hargraves drew a foul and knocked down a pair of free throws to grow the lead by another two. Thomas got involved with his go-to pull-up jumper, this time along the baseline to increase the Royals’ lead to 15 points.

Marquise West finally ended Neelyville’s quarter-long field goal drought with a putback after he grabbed an offensive rebound. Hargraves responded by adding to his highlight reel. He spun away from a defender in the paint and whipped a pass to Isaac Thurman for a layup. Thomas dropped in another 3 to give the Royals their first 20-point lead of the night late in the third quarter.

The Tigers kept the game close in the first quarter but never led in the game. Thomas scored six of the first eight points as he had the hot hand early.

“Coach was telling us all week that we deserved it, and we went out there and we knew we had to go out there and fight for it. We knew they weren’t just going to give it to us. We had to take it,” Thomas said. “It was very important to get that win and get first place. It was great.”

McBroom noticed an added determination for his seniors since it was their chance to go out with an OFC Tournament win.

“They’ve been pretty focused all week; you could kind of see it in their eyes,” McBroom said. “You could see they were thinking, ‘Hey, this is our last go at it.’”

Hargraves finished with eight points to go along with his crisp passing throughout the game. Neelyville’s next game will be against Alton in the MSHSAA Class 2 District 2 at 2 p.m. Feb. 16.

Twin Rivers will travel to Bloomfield for a 7:30 p.m. matchup Monday.

Twin Rivers 12 16 18 14 — 60

Neelyville 9 11 3 9 — 32

TWIN RIVERS (16-7) — Hargraves 2(0) 4-4 8. Thomas 10(2) 0-0 22. Watson 1(1) 0-0 3. Trout 2(0) 1-2 5. Ledbetter 3(0) 0-0 6. Thurman 1(0) 0-0 2. Hendrix 4(1) 0-1 9. Mittlestadt 2(0) 0-2 4. Landers 0(0) 1-2 1. Totals: 23(4) 2-7 60.

NEELYVILLE (13-10) — Williams 5(1) 2-6 13. Burton 1(1) 0-0 3. Ennis 0(0) 1-2 1. Russom 1(1) 0-0 3. Morgeson 1(0) 0-0 2. West 5(0) 0-0 10.