North Callaway and Centralia both have deep rosters, but Centralia’s was deeper on Saturday.

North Callaway was outscored by Centralia’s bench, which accounted for 43 points, in a 55-41 loss in the fifth-place game of the Centralia tournament. The Thunderbirds (4-2) led 23-19 at halftime but lost the lead and couldn’t regain it in the second half.

North Callaway won the first meeting with Centralia (4-3) at North Callaway, but head coach Matt Miller said Centralia was more aggressive in the second half. Initially, Miller said the Thunderbirds did well “weathering the storm” when Centralia made a 7-2 run to close the first half.

North Callaway vs Centralia Photo Gallery

“In the third quarter, they went on a run and we didn’t do a good job of weathering that storm’s second wave,” Miller said. “There were two competitive teams out there. It was a good basketball game, but it got away from us in the fourth quarter.”

Jamarion Glover led North Callaway with 15 points and 11 rebounds to make the all-tournament team, and Austin Brown had 11 points and three 3-pointers. Glover had eight points in the second quarter, and Brown hit two 3-pointers at key times in the second half to keep North Callaway close. 

Hunter Hull led Centralia with 18 points and made the all-tournament team while Ethan Ross had 15 points and knocked down three 3-pointers to give the Panthers two big scorers off the bench. Anthony Ford was Centralia’s most productive starter with seven points and eight rebounds, which was less than what he had against North Callaway in the first meeting. 

“They do a good job of playing a lot of guys,” Miller said. “Our whole focus was to take away (Ford). We did a really good job of taking him away, and you could live with (seven points). Their guards had really big nights for them. That’s a credit to those guys. They stepped up and hit shots.”

Miller said North Callaway’s game plan didn’t help as much in the second half when Hull and Ross were effective in transition after being pesky on defense with eight combined steals. North Callaway could have done better if it did the “simple things” better, according to Miller.

“We let the ball go through our hands,” Miller said. “We were trying to crossover and go behind our backs when people were trapping us. It was simple and fundamental basketball things of catching it and passing it and throwing it to the guys on our team and hitting people on screens.”

Miller said North Callaway was “firing” in the first half but couldn’t close out the game against Centralia. He said a similar thing happened against another talented team Moberly, who won the tournament, in the first round when the Thunderbirds struggled against Moberly’s trap defense to lose 49-36. 

North Callaway did beat Boonville 61-54 in its second game of the week, earning a spot on trophy Saturday for the first time in three years while picking up its first against the Pirates since 2013. Miller said this tournament provides his team with an opportunity it doesn’t have the rest of the season.

“There’s a lot of positive things to take away from this week of basketball,” Miller said. “We probably won’t go the rest of the year playing three games in a week against three teams that are this tough. We faced the No. 2 seed, the No. 3 seed and No. 4 seed in this tournament, and they slotted us as the seventh seed. We weren’t even supposed to be in this game, but we earned the opportunity to be here.”

North Callaway hosts Hallsville (3-2) at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 2.