BOLIVAR, Mo. - The Blair Oaks Falcons had the formula to make a run to the state semifinals.
They have a plethora of senior leadership, an ability score in a variety of ways and they have a solid defense. The only problem was the Springfield Catholic Irish brought all that and then some to the Meyer Sports Center on Saturday afternoon.
"They are just so poised," Blair Oaks coach Ryan Fick said following the Falcons' 54-41 loss to the Irish in the Class 3 quarterfinals at Southwest Baptist. " There's a reason they are 28-3 now."
The Irish will head to the Final Four winners of 12 of their last 13, including nine straight. Blair Oaks had its 18-game winning streak come to a halt as the Falcons finish the season 24-6.
Springfield Catholic will face St. Paul Lutheran: Concordia at 5:10 p.m. Thursday in the state semifinals at JQH Arena in Springfield.
Blair Oaks never found a rhythm offensively, only leading once when it was 26-25 with 6:11 left in the third quarter.
And it was a grind getting to that point. The Falcons trailed 25-16 with 4:48 left in the first half before they scored 10 unanswered points in a 6-minute span.
Braydan Pritchett got the run started by getting open in the corner for a transition 3-pointer at the 3:37 mark of the second quarter.
Dru Rackers cut the deficit to 25-22 with the final basket of the first half with 43 seconds left.
Rackers continued to be the workhorse offensively for the Falcons in the second half, scoring the first four points of the third quarter to take the lead.
Rackers scored a game-high 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting. He also led Blair Oaks with six rebounds.
"I'm happy for the season he had because he put in so much time in the offseason to improve the way he did," Fick said. "He's hurting right now because he's invested a lot of time."
Springfield Catholic rattled off 12 straight points in the next four minutes of play to lead 37-26.
Jake Branham, one of six seniors for the Irish and the leading scorer at 19.1 points per game, gave Springfield Catholic lead for good on a corner 3-pointer with 5:58 left in the third quarter. Branham had 14 points.
"You don't have to watch for very long to realize he's special," Fick said. "He controls that team and he's their leader. He handles the ball so well, high basketball IQ."
A variety of players got into the action during Springfield Cathlic's run as Charles O'Reilly had four of the 12 points, including chasing down a Blair Oaks pass that went into the backcourt and scoring a layup for a 35-26 lead.
Rackers had to go to the bench during that stretch after picking up his third foul.
"It didn't really work out for us to take him off the floor because he was getting some pretty good position at times and just working so hard on the glass," Fick said.
O'Reilly led Springfield Catholic with 15 points, including making all seven of his free throws. Four of those free throws came during the fourth quarter.
"We knew that the way they shoot free throws, 10 points feels pretty insurmountable," Fick said.
The Irish took a 40-31 advantage into the final quarter and didn't let Blair Oaks get any closer than seven.
Rackers cut it to eight with 1:52 left, scoring a layup and drawing a foul that prompted an emphatic fist pump from the senior.
But Blair Oaks missed two 3s, turned it over once and made a free throw the rest of the way as Springfield Catholic made 6-of-8 at the free-throw line to close it out.
Blair Oaks turned to a full-court pressure in the fourth quarter, but the Irish only turned it over twice in the final eight minutes.
The Irish scored the game's first five points, including a 3-point play by Branham that sent the 6-foot-8 Eric Northweather to the bench with two fouls.
"That was not a good turn of events for us to have to put him on the bench," Fick said. "We got into a bit of a hole, but I was proud of the way we kept battling."
Trent Martin tied the game at 9 with a 3 from the wing before the Irish closed the opening quarter on an 8-2 run to lead 17-11.
Zach Howell stretched the lead to 23-14 less than three minutes into the second quarter with a pair of 3s and Branham made it 25-16 with 4:48 left in the quarter on a layup.
"What they did so well today is they drove at our close-outs and they had us scrambling," Fick said. "If you help after getting beat on the first rotation they do so well at finding the open guy and then you're scrambling to close out to him. Just continuous movement. They are a very, very difficult team to guard."
And a difficult team to score on. Blair Oaks was held to its lowest total since scoring 50 in a 16-point defeat against the Irish in December.
"We knew that offensively they were one of the best teams we've ever played as far as how they moved the ball," Fick said. "I think where we maybe sold them short a little bit was how good they were defensively."
Blair Oaks will graduate seven seniors: Pritchett, Rackers, Martin, Corban Bonnett, Nolan Hair, Cameron Hardwick and Webb Villmer.
"You're going to see a lot of successful kids out of that senior class," Fick said.