By Bob Hamar
bob.hamar@theindependent.com

The Grand Island Central Catholic coach brought it up at the beginning of the season when he told them there are two ways to make it to the state tournament.

The only sure way is to win your district.

"You win your district is the only certain way to go," Gavers said, "and then you can get a wild card. Our motto all year, and it has been the last few years, is 'every game is a state tournament game.'

"The thing the wild card does is it can reward teams that are mentally and physically ready to play every night. You look at our schedule and it's challenging. We had some games we could have won. We had some other games we could have lost, so it kind of goes both ways."

In the end, the wild card points added up in GICC's favor. The Crusaders lost to Gibbon in subdistrict play but earned one of the two Class C-2 wild card bids to advance to the state tournament.

Central Catholic (15-7) will play Deshler (22-1) at 3:45 p.m. today in a C-2 first-round game at Lincoln Southeast High School.

GICC senior Luke Wagoner said it's great to get to play in the state tournament.

"It means a lot to our guys," Wagoner said. "We've been in the program a long time and haven't played varsity a lot. It's really exciting to get there and go down and have a chance to win something."

Seniors Wagoner, Mike Buck and Jake O'Connor all played three years with the GICC program while seeing little if any varsity action. That changed this season when those three along with senior Sam Bolton and junior Spencer Fahey have been in the starting lineup all season long.

"It's been really fun," Wagoner said. "I wasn't sure if I was going to come out and now I'm really glad that I did."

Gavers said the key for the Crusaders is that their losses came to Ravenna (23-1), Minden (17-4), Beatrice (18-3), Lincoln Christian (13-6), Boys Town (21-5), Hastings St. Cecilia (20-2) and Gibbon (14-8).

Ravenna, Minden, Beatrice, Boys Town and St. Cecilia are all playing in the state tournament.

"What we did do all year was we didn't have any really bad losses," Gavers said. "All our losses were to Division I teams, except for Lincoln Christian and Lincoln Christian was a pretty good team.

"You can't lose to a third-division team or a fourth-division team and expect to get a wild card, so our kids did a great job of mentally and physically being ready. It's nice to see them rewarded for their effort during the year."

Their reward is a fifth seed at state and a game against a very good Deshler team.

"We're going to need to shore up some things defensively," Gavers said. "We've really worked a lot on our cutting and screening. We have to move better. We felt like at subdistricts we didn't move and cut as well. Give Gibbon credit for playing well defensively, but we feel like we did a lot of standing and didn't get to cutting and screening. That's what we've tried to improve on."

The Dragons feature two players averaging double-doubles this season in Jens Scholl and Dan Werner.

"They're a very good team," Gavers said. "They have two guys averaging double-doubles. Jens Scholl, a 6-2 guard, is averaging about 22 points and 11rebounds. I don't know a lot of guys with those kinds of numbers.

"Then Werner inside is averaging about 15 and 10. It's very rare on one team when you have two guys averaging double-doubles."

Wagoner said the players know how important defense will be for the Crusaders.

"It's really important," Wagoner said. "That's what we take pride in. We don't all have good offensive skills, but we all know how to play defense."

The Crusaders rely on Fahey for much of their offensive punch. The 6-0 junior is averaging 18.8 points per game. Senior Jake O'Connor is also in double figures at 10.7 per game.