HAYS — One win from playing for a Class 1A-Division II state basketball championship, Otis-Bison High School had its title  hopes dashed by Hope in Friday’s semifinal round.
Hope (21-3) built a nine-point lead after one quarter and never looked back, storming into Saturday’s title game after toppling Otis-Bison 57-39 on Friday evening at Gross Memorial Coliseum.
One day removed from edging Fowler 53-50 in suspense-filled overtime game in the opening round for the first state tourney win in school history, Otis-Bison (15-10) couldn’t match up with the athletic Lions, especially in the post.
Dwight Davidson, a 6-foot-2 post player, hit 11 of 14 shots for a game-high 22 points. He also had four of their 29 rebounds, where the Lions had a decided 29-11 edge underneath the backboards.
The beast in the paint for Hope was 6-2 jumping jack Todd Kickhaefer, who had a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds, including six on the offensive end. The Lions shot 53 percent from the floor (15 for 34).
“Twenty-nine rebounds to 11, plus 53-percent shooting,” Otis-Bison head coach Alan Clark said. “We haven’t gotten beat on the boards that bad, even when we played as good of teams.
“When we played Macksville during the regular season, they go 6-5 and 6-6 and they had only two rebounds and we were within three points of them (in a loss). But you can’t give up 10 offensive rebounds and get beat by 18 rebounds and expect to be in the game.”
Cougars guard Mike Hlavaty scored a team-high 12 points and Patrick Piper came off the bench and made all five of his field-goal attempts for 10 points.
Sophomore guard Dylan Wissman was held to seven points on 3-for-10 shooting, and junior post player Brandon Pechanec was in foul trouble early, never got in a rhythm and was held scoreless with no field-goal attempts. He scored 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting during the overtime win over Fowler.
Despite a height disadvantage and despite trying to play catch-up, Otis-Bison was still in contention in the third quarter, trailing 40-32 at the 2:17 mark.
But Hope converted 5 of 6 free throws the remainder of the period to take a 45-33 lead and decided momentum into the final quarter.
Every time the Cougars would score, Hope would answer.
“We just weren’t very good defensively,” Clark said. “There’s not a whole lot to say about this game, they just flat beat us. They beat us defensively, they beat us offensively, they out-coached us, they outrebounded us and took care of the ball better than we did.
“They just flat beat us.”
Hope went on a 10-4 run during the final3½ minutes of the first quarter to build an 18-9 advantage on the way to leading 27-19 at halftime.
The Lions outrebounded the Cougars 16-6 in the first half as Kickhaefer and Davidson made their presence felt.
Hope guard Shilo Goracke had eight of  his 10 points in the first half for the Lions, who made half of their 24 field goals before the break.
Otis-Bison made 7 of 16 field goals (43.8 percent) and committed nine turnovers during the opening 16 minutes.

CLASS 1A-DIVISION II
STATE BASKETBALL
TOURNAMENT

Semifinal
Friday
At Hays
Gross Memorial Coliseum

Hope 57, Otis-Bison 39
OTIS-BISON (15-9)
Trevor Keller 2-8 0-0 5, Michael Hlavaty 3-5 6-9 12, Dylan Wissman 3-10 0-0 7, Jackie Cornwell 0-1 0-0 0, Patrick Piper 5-5 0-0 10, Dominic Trapp 2-5 1-3 5, Brandon Pechanec 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-34 7-12 39.
HOPE (21-3)
 Lucas Bird 2-7 0-0 5, Shilo Goracke 4-9 2-2 10, Dwight Davidson 11-14 0-0 22, Todd Kickhaefer 3-7 6-7 12, Tyler Mudd 1-2 2-2 4, Nathan Lorson 1-1 0-0 2, Landon Cook 0-0 0-0 0, Phillip Haslouer 0-0 0-0 0, Jacob Boeschling 1-3 0-0 2. Totals 23-43 10-11 57.
Otis-Bison    9    10    14     6   —  39
Hope           18    9     18    12  —  57
     Three-point goals —Otis-Bison 2-7 (Keller 1-3, Wissman 1-3, Trapp 0-1); Hope 1-3 (Bird 1-1, Mudd 0-1, Boeschling 0-1). Rebounds — Hope 29 (Kickhaefer 13, Davidson 4, Goracke 4); Otis-Bison 11 (Keller 3, Hlavaty 3, Trapp). Assists — Hope 12 (Goracke 4); Otis-Bison 5 (Keller 2).