LA CROSSE — He missed the final free throw of the game, but the basketball bounced right back to Kyle Hehli as time was about to expire.
The West Salem High School senior grabbed it, chucked it in the air and walked off the court at Logan’s Steve Hole Field House to celebrate a very difficult victory that extended their season to Saturday.
Hehli scored 25 points, and teammate Drew McConkey had a huge second half and overtime as the third-seeded Panthers slipped by top-seeded Onalaska 77-73 in overtime to win a WIAA Division 2 sectional semifinal on Thursday.
The victory included clawing their way back from a 21-point deficit in the first half and overcoming two players lost to fouls, but the reward is a sectional final against Wausau East (19-7), which also needed overtime to beat New Richmond 69-68 on Thursday.
The Panthers (20-6) and Lumberjacks will play at 1 p.m. Saturday in Wisconsin Rapids for the chance to compete in the state tournament at the Kohl Center in Madison next week.
“Oh, man, we knew the shots weren’t falling, and (the Hilltoppers) had a lot of energy,” Hehli said of the first 13 minutes of the game. “We knew there was a lot of game left, and we just had to cut into their lead before halftime.”
Onalaska (19-8) had a 28-7 lead after Tyson Hughes hit a 3-pointer and followed it with another basket. The Hilltoppers were calm and collected, using everyone on the court to dismantle a team that also needed overtime to beat Central in its regional final on Saturday.
“It was a matter of making shots to get back in it,” said West Salem coach Mark Wagner, who had to use two early timeouts to try and kill the Hilltoppers’ momentum. “They don’t have any quit in them.”
But even after erasing the deficit in the second half — West Salem took its first lead at 57-55 when Nathan Dillaber scored in transition off a pass from Spencer Kammel with 3 minutes, 50 seconds remaining in the second half — the Panthers had to fight off the Kowal brothers to claim the victory.
Junior Ian Kowal and freshman Tyler Kowal each scored in the final 10.6 seconds to tie the game at 66, and Ian Kowal opened overtime with a pair of free throws.
The lead was exchanged four times in overtime before McConkey hit a pair of free throws for a 76-73 West Salem lead with 31.2 seconds remaining.
The Hilltoppers ran clock until taking a timeout with 13.4 seconds left, then turned it over when a pass from Jack Smith to Brendan Chenault under the basket didn’t connect and sailed out of bounds.
Hehli was fouled and made the first free throw to ice the win with 1.9 seconds on the clock.
McConkey didn’t score in the first half but wound up with 17 points — five in overtime — and provided the Panthers with plenty of opportunities at second-chance points.
“McConkey was just huge for us,” Wagner said. “He’s a kid who struggled with turnovers and missed shots for us early, but you know that kid will come back.
“He was there for every offensive rebound, it seemed, and he hit some big shots for us.”
Senior Broden Steiner scored a team-high 19 points for Onalaska, while Ian Kowal added 17 and Tyler Kowal 15. Dillaber scored 11 for West Salem.
That Onalaska balance was difficult for West Salem to deal with early in the game. Steiner did a great job inside, and Ian Kowal adjusted to the Panthers’ game plan of making it tough for him to find good looks from the perimeter by finding success at getting to the rim.
“It’s tough because it’s such a good team with so many talented players,” Hehli said of Onalaska. “Everybody can score the basketball, and we wanted to stop their guys from getting to the rim. We did our best.
“We spent all week in practice working at getting around screens and trying to make (Ian Kowal) uncomfortable with the looks he got. We also wanted to try and tire him out by making him work hard on defense.”
