Oakville Boys Win a Shoot-Out Over Mehlville

In the end, the Oakville boys knew who to look for, and at 6-foot-9, sophomore Austin Gillman is easily spotted under the hoop.

Gillman’s team-high 23 points—17 in the second half—kept Oakville in front of Mehlville, to win the first round of the Class 5 district playoff games 65-60. Fox is the tournament host.

The first quarter was fairly even. Gillman had six points, but so did Mehlville senior forward Adis Mujakic, who was game-high with a 26-point total.

Oakville head coach Nick Traxler was impressed with Mehlville’s play. He said the rivalry was a factor.

“We had already beaten them once this year, so Mehlville came out ready to play,” he said. “They knocked some shots down they didn’t knock down the first time.”

Mujakic had five points in the second quarter, and senior guard Brendan Merz hit one of his three 3-pointers. Oakville led by 27-23 at the half.

Through the third and fourth quarters the lead changed hands four times. It was a one-point game with five minutes to go, then Gillman found the ball in his hands twice, to stretch the lead.

“First quarter we did a really good job, we kind of lost that for a while in the second and first part of the third quarter,” Traxler said. “But then when we really needed buckets we knew where to go, and (Gillman) did what he had to do for us.”

Then, in the final two minutes, Oakville hit 12 out of 18 free throws. Even so, Merz hit two late 3-pointers to keep the score close. With seconds to go, Oakville had only a 4-point lead.

“Oakville has a lot of size,” Mehlville coach Andy Guethle said. “And they run a lot of good stuff. We obviously went over their stuff, but then we tried to worry about what we could do, and I think our kids did a pretty nice job.

“They had a little stretch there where they stretched it out to 6-8, we just couldn’t come back from there,” he said.

Mehlville’s season ends with a 5-17 record. Oakville takes their 8-14 record to the district tournament semifinals against Vianney (15-11) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Vianney got a bye to the spot on the bracket.

“We look forward to a rematch with Vianney,” Traxler said. “We played them last year in the district championship game (which Vianney won 48-43), now we’ll have them in the semifinals so we’ll see what happens.”