When Gaven Pinkley plays AAU basketball this summer, he’s sure to draw college coaches like ants to a picnic.
The Hillsboro junior, a 6-8 forward, had a highlight-reel season in 2016-2017, leading the Hawks to their second straight conference title and first district championship since 2011. He averaged a double-double in points and rebounds and earned all-state recognition from the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association.
Pinkley teamed with sophomore forward Michael Brewer for a devastating one-two punch in the frontcourt that helped power Hillsboro to a 25-4 record.
“Gaven is more of a Magic Johnson-type of guy and Brewer is more of a Karl Malone kind of guy,” said Hillsboro head coach Dan Johnson in a tongue-in-cheek comparison to the NBA legends. “Michael plays with more power and speed, and he does have some finesse in his game. His go-to play is get to the rim. Gaven is more of a navigator. I hope Michael’s game continues to progress. I would like for him to improve his ball-handling skills.”
Both players were named to the Jefferson County Activities Association large-schools all-conference first team. Pinkley averaged 20.6 points and 10.4 rebounds per game to win conference player-of-the-year honors. Brewer, meanwhile, improved from nine points per game as a freshman to 15.8 this year and led the team in field-goal percentage at 63.2 percent, making 172 of 272 attempts.
Pinkley worked out for Cleveland State University head coach Dennis Felton in Hillsboro earlier this month. Felton previously coached at Western Kentucky University and the University of Georgia and guided those teams to a combined four appearances in the NCAA tournament.
“We’ll give him all of the opportunities to showcase his talents,” said Johnson, who was named the conference coach of the year.
Pinkley’s skills on the court further evolved this year. After the graduation of point guard Tyler Schwartz last spring, Pinkley stepped up in a leadership role and trusted his teammates more.
“In turn he made his teammates better,” Johnson said. “It kind of all flowed together.”
Pinkley said he plans to commit to a college before the start of next season. Johnson said settling on a choice will be a big relief for Pinkley and his family.
“It will take a lot of stress off of him knowing where he’s going to play for the next four years,” Johnson said.
Brewer is watching and learning from all of the attention his teammate gets. Brewer topped Pinkley in free-throw shooting this season (73 percent to 68 percent) and participates in the morning workouts and open gyms set up for coaches to scout Pinkley. Those coaches get a good look at him, too.
“Word of mouth carries quickly,” Johnson said, noting that NCAA Division II schools Truman State University (Kirksville) and the University of Central Missouri (Warrensburg) already have talked to Brewer. “He gets to see what it’s all about with the attention Gaven is getting.”
Theiss, Woods also make team
A broken back kept De Soto senior Craig Theiss from playing basketball until his junior year. Head coach Zeb Hammond can only imagine what kind of player Theiss could have been if he’d played all four years.
“He came out his junior year kind of on a whim because he’s a baseball kid,” Hammond said. “He worked hard to get where he’s at.”
Theiss faced Pinkley and the Hawks three times this year, and despite the Dragons losing all three meetings, Theiss came away with 44 points. For the season, he was on target from the field, making 170 of 281 shots (60.5 percent) and averaging 16.5 points.
With Theiss drawing double-teams inside, junior guard Austin West flourished offensively, averaging nearly 13 points per outing.
“Craig was a great asset to the team all around,” Hammond said. “His shot-blocking improved. He stayed out of foul trouble and didn’t foul out of any games this year. He knew when to rotate over and block shots.
“He’s somebody you can build a program around, on his work ethic alone. He pushed everybody else to up their game.”
Like Theiss, Festus senior Joe Woods played just two seasons. A 6-3 wing forward, Woods transferred to Festus before his junior year and immediately became an impact player for the Tigers. He scored 741 points in 47 games and helped lead the team to a 15-11 mark this season, averaging 18 points and more than three assists per game.
Woods also put a memorable stamp on his final season for Festus with back-to-back game-winning shots in the closing seconds of wins over De Soto and Jefferson.
“He’s a tremendous athlete who scored a lot of points, but he also had some tremendous defensive performances for us,” Festus head coach Jason Therrell said. “He’s good at creating his own shots. He was very hard to keep from the basket.”
Tiger pair lead girls squad
Festus seniors Jordan Oetting and Ally Frazier were thrown into the varsity fire from their first game as freshmen in 2013. They weren’t bench players, either; both were team captains as freshmen, a rarity in prep basketball.
The pair helped spark the Tigers to a district championship and became bedrock performers for four years as Festus produced twice as many wins (68) as losses (34).
“We were so young when they came in,” said Festus head coach Ron Rhodes, who shared the 2016-2017 large schools conference coach of the year honors with De Soto’s Sam Rauls after piloting the Tigers to the conference championship. “Caroline White (a junior at the time) was a captain as well that year. We didn’t have much of an upper class at the time.”
Despite dealing with injuries every year, Oetting still set the school career scoring record with 1,394 points. She missed four games this season, but the Tigers never tailed off because her younger sister and backcourt mate, sophomore Jen Oetting, helped pick up the slack and gave Rhodes the confidence his program won’t suffer with the older Oetting’s graduation.
“Jordan is a very gifted athlete,” Rhodes said. “She and Ally put the Tigers back on the map. They put in a lot of work. Jordan was our go-to person for four years.”
While Jordan Oetting plans to play soccer for Purdue University, Frazier will stay with basketball and continue her career at Culver-Stockton College in Canton. She played in 98 of the Tigers’ 100 games in her four-year career, finishing with 905 points.
“She loves to play,” Rhodes said. “If you have any open gym or summer league, she’s the last one to leave. They fed off of each other. Jordan was good at setting Ally up from 3-point range. Ally played in the post and battled hard against 6-footers and held her own.”
De Soto’s 7-19 record and seven-game losing streak to end the season underscored the team’s relative inexperience. But the Dragons were 2-2 in conference games and gave league-champ Festus all it could handle before losing 61-59 loss on Feb. 6.
Head coach Sam Rauls had to reassemble his lineup after losing key players to graduation and the transfer of post player Macy Ketcherside, who was the JCAA small schools player of the year for Grandview this season.
In the process, Rauls unearthed two gems.
Junior Madalyn Bone became the backbone of the Dragons, averaging 14.5 points per game. That spiked to 19.5 points against conference opponents. She also averaged 9.75 assists in league games.
Bone, a three-sport athlete who also competes in softball and tennis, stands only 5-2 but demonstrated fearlessness around the basket, pulling down 111 rebounds. All that crashing the boards sent her to the free-throw line 201 times this season, where she converted 142 attempts (70.6 percent).
“She can take over when I ask her to,” Rauls said of Bone. “She just outhustles people. When you get to the line over 200 times, you’re doing something correct. She’s itching for more. She’s not one to pat herself on the back.”
De Soto’s Kendall Boyer, the only sophomore on the first team, had a breakout season in the post. Absorbing a lot of contact in the paint, she led the Dragons with 12.2 rebounds per game, just seven-tenths shy of the school record. Boyer ended up averaging a double-double, accounting for 11 points per game.
“She is a hidden gem,” Rauls said. “We all saw her potential. At the beginning of the season, I had an inkling she’d be a varsity player. She wasn’t as confident as she could be at first.
“She has the innate ability to go get the basketball,” Rauls added. “She will find a way to catch the ball and do something with it.”
The league coaches recognized Rauls for his rebuilding job, giving him a coach-of-the-year nod alongside Rhodes.
“Anytime you can share anything with a hall of fame coach (Rhodes) is remarkable,” Rauls said. “To be recognized by the other coaches in the conference and achieving the goals we’ve set was nice to see.”
Close a leader by far
Hillsboro senior Lexi Close was the team’s Rock of Gibraltar for four years, scoring 1,327 points in 101 games. Her scoring steadily increased each season and she was among the leaders in the St. Louis area this winter with 22 points per game.
As much as the Hawks relied on Close to score points, her defensive abilities were just as important. She had 164 blocks in her career, including 44 this season.
“Her defensive impact has always been pretty significant,” Hillsboro head coach Joe Fehlker said.
And when a game was on the line, there was no better player to have at the free-throw line than Close, who sank 84 percent (120 of 143) from the charity stripe. She put away Grandview 37-36 on Feb. 16 with a last-second free throw.
“Her free-throw shooting was pretty unbelievable,” Fehlker said. “She found ways to get the ball in the basket from all different positions.”
Fehlker said he’s spent a lot of time with Close over the last four years.
“Before the season, I said, ‘Lexi, this is your year, your team and your turn.’ She knew what we wanted and she addressed stuff before we brought it up,” he said. “She’s a good communicator and listener. She didn’t just go through the motions.”