On Saturday, March 6, the Rose Hill High School boy’s basketball team defeated Clearwater 52-49 in overtime to advance to the class 4A basketball tournament.

Earlier in the year, they lost to Clearwater twice by a combined five points. This was the second time they have gone to overtime with Clearwater this season. 

The Rockets are the eighth seed and will play the top-seeded Parsons Vikings on Thursday March 12 at 3:00 P.M.. The game will take place at the Tony’s Pizza Event Center in Salina. 

This will be the second time in five seasons the Rockets have qualified for state. 

“We knew they were gonna be tough,” head coach Josh Shirley said. “It’s tough to beat a team three times. Our kids were very locked in on beating them so it’s great, especially because this year they were the only league team we hadn’t beat. To get that one was very special in the way we did.”

Koby Campbell led all scorers with 18 points while Luke Witt added 10 points.

“It means a lot,” Campbell said. “It’s something that we’ve worked really hard for and we’ve had our sights set on since the beginning of the season and we all deserve it.”

The Rockets trailed by three points at halftime, and Clearwater missed a layup at the end of the fourth quarter which would have won the game for the Indians. 

“Parsons is an extremely tough team,” said Shirley. “They’re not the one seed for no reason. They’re extremely athletic, they score a lot of points. We’re gonna have to defend really well . If we play well, we’ll give ourselves a chance.”