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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\nAfter a cold start for both teams in the first three minutes of the game, Missouri Southern took over and eventually built a 10-point lead. MSSU shot a clean 50% from the field during the first half, with all of their scoring coming from the first shot of the possession, as they scored zero second-chance points during the half.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the momentum changed for the Tigers with just under four minutes until halftime when they went on a 13-0 run to take the lead, 35-30. After that, Fort Hays never trailed and was able to keep the Lions at bay, resulting in the final score of 71-55.
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\u201cWe had a hard time starting the game handling Stan Scott, the point guard. He\u2019s just so long and athletic and we got off to a tough start. I think what really helped our guys is that we\u2019ve experienced that before and our guys didn\u2019t panic about our start,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt felt like we were getting really good looks but just couldn\u2019t make them, but our guys stayed the course and then we really started playing well. Jared [Vitztum] really got us going. He hit a couple shots and really carried us that first half.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coming off of his third first-team all-conference honor, Vitztum posted his 16th double-double of the season with 24 points and 16 rebounds. Kaleb Hammeke and Nyjee Wright were next for the Tigers, scoring 14 each. They also received all-conference honors, earning second-team and honorable mention respectively.
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The next high scorer was Quinten Rock, who had eight points, all coming during key moments during the second half. As a team, Fort Hays ended with 45.5% field goal shooting, 37% from beyond the arc, and 73.3% from the free-throw line.
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Up next for the Tigers is the number two seed Northwest Missouri State Bearcats. In earlier meetings this season, Fort Hays lost 74-60 and 57-49.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNorthwest is a great team, they\u2019ve presented a lot of problems for us the last couple years,\u201d Vitztum said. \u201cWe went down to their place and struggled the first half, thought we kind of figured some stuff out in the second half, so we\u2019re just going to keep playing hard, play defense, and hopefully a few more shots fall.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think we just have to come in with confidence knowing that we just played them, so we\u2019re kind of ready for them already. We just need to be confident and start the game off the right way,\u201d Wright said.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The semifinal matchup with the Bearcats is set for 8:15 p.m. on Saturday. The game will be broadcast on the MIAA Network, along with more coverage from Tiger Media Network.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BY RAEGAN NEUFELDPHOTOS BY LOREN McQUEENY The Fort Hays men\u2019s basketball team (23-5, 17-5 MIAA) took on the Lions of Missouri Southern on Friday in… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":63810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3394,7349],"tags":[3466,9873,14422,14459,775,10990,14226],"class_list":["post-63813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mens-basketball-sports","category-sports","tag-fhsu-mens-basketball","tag-jared-vitztum","tag-kaleb-hammeke","tag-loren-mcqueeny","tag-mark-johnson","tag-nyjee-wright","tag-raegan-neufeld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/1B6A8205.jpg?fit=6720%2C4480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63815,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63813\/revisions\/63815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}