Woodland boys basketball team staves off Oran at Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament

Woodland boys basketball coach Logan Nutt knows that his team's first-round game against Oran wasn't the prettiest to end to Day 1 of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament on Saturday night. But Nutt praised his players for their resiliency down the stretch in their 80-72 victory over the Eagles at the Show Me Center.

"We weren't working on all cylinders today," Nutt said, "and just the simple effort plays at the end by limiting Oran to one shot and knocking down free throws late in the game and limiting our turnovers late in the game made the difference."

The eighth-seeded Cardinals, who faced an early deficit against the Eagles, staved off No. 9 Oran in the second half.

Woodland held a 38-33 advantage at halftime but a pair of Jacob Shoemaker free throws cut the deficit to three nine seconds into the second half.

Back-to-back dunks from Zach Beel and Michael McCormick off Oran turnovers, and a steal and layup by Tyler Womack, pushed the lead back to 44-35 and forced an Oran timeout 54 seconds into the second half.

The Eagles got within three once more about a minute later, but never got any closer.

"We've got to start playing better. We're out of position sometimes," Oran coach Joe Shoemaker said. "We make some little mistakes, but we make too many little mistakes."

The Cardinals pushed their lead to 60-48 by the end of the third and held a double-figure edge for much of the fourth, but the Eagles used a 9-4 run midway with about three minutes left that was capped with a Shoemaker 3-pointer that bounced around the rim several times for falling through cut it to 73-68 with 1:47 left.

Oran's Max Priggel navigates to the hoop past Woodland defense during the second quarter in a first-round game of the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament Saturday, Dec. 26, 2015 at the Show Me Center. (Glenn Landberg)

Woodland (7-1) made 7 of 14 free throws in the final 1:38 to close out the win.

"I've got to give credit to Coach Shoemaker and Oran," Nutt said. "They knocked us out of our comfort zone a little bit, getting offensive rebounds against us. We're big and shouldn't be allowing offensive rebounds but they did a great job crashing the boards. They forced us into unnecessary turnovers. So our game wasn't exactly pretty, but I've got to give the credit to Oran for making that happen.

"But at the end of the day I think we had a few guys step up like Cole Schlief and Michael McCormick and they stepped up to the plate and got the job done."

Schlief finished with a game-high -- and Day 1 high -- 24 points and knocked down a pair of 3-pointers, including one in the second quarter that was part of a string of three straight Woodland 3s. The other two 3s in that stretch by Womack gave the Cardinals their first lead of the game at 23-21 with 5:30 left in the first half.

McCormick finished with eight points for Woodland, but blocked or altered several Oran shots with his height advantage.

Shoemaker emphasized pushing the ball in transition, which the Eagles were able to do early in the game. They scored the first seven points of the game and held a 16-13 lead after the first quarter. Their last lead of the game came with 2:49 left in the first half on a three-point play by Cole Priggel, who finished with 18 points. Shoemaker had 20 and Garrison Mangels, the Eagles' second-tallest player at 6-foot-1, had 15.

"We're not very big, so we've got to try to get some easy baskets going and hopefully start shooting the ball better outside," Shoemaker said.

Woodland's size -- the Cardinals have five players 6-foot-3 are taller -- caused problems for the Eagles."The height disadvantage was major. *... Even on shooters. When [Zach] Beel's 6-6, 6-7 and we've got a 5-10 [kid] guarding him you've got to be extremely close to get a hand up and then you [risk] the chance of him getting around you to the rim," Shoemaker said. "I thought our kids competed hard. We just didn't do some things correctly."

Shoemaker credited Woodland with forcing his players into bad decision-making at times.

"It's tough on guards when they put Beel who's big enough to stick with you and long-arm you. It's not us just making them. *... They trapped on the sidelines and their little half-court trap's tough for us. It really is."

Beel finished with 18 points. His last basket came with 3:36 remaining in the third and when he landed he injured his ankle. He did not play the remainder of the game.

"We think it's just a sprain, but there's no telling how long he'll be out, or even if he is [out]," Nutt said.

Oran (3-5) faces No. 16 Delta at 1:30 p.m. Monday in a consolation quarterfinal.

The Cardinals play top-seeded Jackson at 4:30 p.m. Monday in a championship quarterfinal.

"I think Jackson will be a great challenge for us," Nutt said. "I've been onto our team about when you have a good team that has a lot of talent you have to be pushed to the limit, you have to be tested, and I think Jackson will be a great test for us. But all in all we want to improve ourselves. We've got to stop focusing on other teams and we've got to make sure we get to rebounding and protecting the ball better, and we've got to knock down free throws."

Oran 16 17 15 24 -- 72

Woodland 13 25 22 20 -- 80

ORAN (72) -- Cole Priggel 18, Jacob Shoemaker 20, Max Priggel 10, Preston Hahn 2, Layne Johnson 5, Drew Reischman, Garrison Mangels 15. FG 23, FT 24-31, F 29. (3-pointers: Shoemaker 2. Fouled out: C. Priggel, Shoemaker, M. Priggel, Mangels.)

WOODLAND (80) -- Logan Thomsen 10, Cole Schlief 24, Connor Goodwin 2, Tyler Womack 11, Zach Beel 18, Bruester Young 3, Paul Duncan 4, Michael McCormick 8. FG 27, FT 20-35, F 21. (3-pointers: Schlief 2, Womack 2, Beel, Young. Fouled out: None.)