Through the first 16 minutes of the 97th annual MUDECAS Basketball Tournament A Division boys championship, Class C2’s leading scorer didn’t have a field goal. Tri County’s Drew Siems had just two points on a pair of free throws — 20 below his class-leading average.
Reigning tournament — and state — champion Johnson-Brock had done a terrific job containing Siems, with senior Brody Koehler taking on the assignment. The second-seeded Eagles, No. 4 in both the NebPreps Coaches Poll and Computer Ratings, entered the game with a 12-1 record. The lone loss was to Tri County on Dec. 19, but Koehler, the team’s leading scorer, didn’t play in that game. Siems scored 26 points in the 48-36 Trojan victory.
Fortunately for Tri County, there are two halves in a basketball game, and Siems went off in the final 12 minutes to lead the Trojans to a 53-51 win Saturday night at the Municipal Auditorium in Beatrice. The championship was the second in four years for Tri County, and the second for the Trojan senior class, including Siems.
“It was a community effort,” Tri County coach Jeremy Siems said. “There was great support tonight. It’s a lot of fun. I think everybody had a lot of fun here, and I know the guys did. But I think it’s huge. Our girls were in the championship last night, so it’s contagious. Hopefully, we can keep getting better, work at it every day and keep it rolling.”
The game was tied at 21-all in the second quarter before Johnson-Brock scored the last five points of the first half and the first six of the second to build a 32-21 lead. At that point, Siems was 0-for-4 from the field.
Drew Siems brings the ball up the court during the MUDECAS Basketball Tournament. Photo by Jackson Luethje.
“He was frustrated in that first half, there’s no doubt,” Coach Siems said. “We told him at half, I said, ‘Just stay the course, keep playing defense. Things are going to happen. We’ll have our opportunities.’ Zach Vossler was able to really step up for us in that first half, and really did his part really well inside.”
Trevor Kapke hit a 3 to end the run and Vossler scored inside after that, trimming the deficit to seven at 33-26. Vossler, a 6-foot-5 senior, scored 17 of the team’s first 26 points to keep the Trojans afloat while Siems found his way.
The 6-foot-3 senior guard did just that midway through the third, and it was the Siems show from then on. He stole the ball and took it the other way for a layup, his first field goal. Soon after, he drew a foul on a 3-pointer and hit all three free throws. Then he hit a 3 to end the third quarter, pulling Tri County within two at 36-34.
“I was [frustrated], but my teammates kept on picking me back up every time,” Drew Siems said. “It’s hard to get down yourself when you have positive teammates always, so it just helped a ton … Their motivation helped me get confidence in myself again. They just kept telling me, ‘Keep shooting.’”
With the lid off the rim, Siems went off in the fourth, scoring 17 points to lead the Trojans to victory. He converted a layup to put the Trojans ahead 43-41 with 3:25 to go, the first of five lead changes in the fourth. The last change was courtesy of Siems as well as he pulled up from well beyond the 3-point line and buried it with 1:20 to go for a 48-46 lead.
“I was feeling confident in myself at that point,” Siems said about the shot. “I knew the consequences if I missed it, but the rewards were even better.”
Siems added a three-point play and a pair of free throws to extend the lead to seven. Johnson-Brock scored five points in the last 10 seconds to make it a one-possession game but ran out of time.
All told, Siems scored 25 of Tri County’s last 27 points, and he assisted the other bucket by Jason Wehrman. He finished with 27 points on 8-of-13 from the field (2-of-3 from 3) and 9-of-9 from the foul line, nine rebounds and five assists. Saturday’s performance followed a 30-point, 10-rebound triple double in Thursday’s semifinals as Tri County upset top-seeded Freeman 50-41.
Through 15 games, Siems is averaging 22.9 points, 8.3 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 3.1 steals while shooting 47.4% from the field and 79.3% from the free-throw line.
“I can’t put it into words,” Coach Siems said of his son’s MUDECAS performance. “I’ve never been able to see that or do that. To have a player be able to step up in those moments and hit those shots is pretty special. But he works incredibly hard at it. Last year, I think, after several losses, we’d come home from an away game, and he’d be in the gym shooting. It’s just that work when nobody’s looking, I think, that shows up in weeks like this.”
Drew said the championship means even more because he was able to win it while playing for his dad and his older brother, Cole, on the coaching staff, with his younger brother Dawson a freshman on the team.
“It’s awesome,” Drew said. “I know my dad loves basketball, and my brother is also my coach, so I go home and hear about it all the time. To get the win is going to be pretty awesome tonight, to go have some fun with them.”
Vossler shot 6-of-7 from the field and 5-of-9 from the foul line while grabbing eight rebounds for the Trojans, and his 17 points tied his second-highest total of the season.
“That was huge,” Drew said. “When we know we can feed somebody inside and we can count on him to make it and finish his free throws, too, that’s amazing for our team. It was just huge.”
Hayden Gravatt led Johnson-Brock with 17 points on 7-of-12 from the field (3-of-4 from 3), four assists and three steals. Koehler added 14 points as the Eagles took their second loss of the season and finished as runner-up.
Tri County held Johnson-Brock to 6-of-23 from the field with four turnovers in the second half to turn the game around and improve to 11-4.
“It’s been this way all week for us,” Coach Siems said. “We fought from behind against Freeman. We battled back there; I think we were down three or so going in the fourth quarter. We were down going into this fourth quarter. I like the mental toughness our guys showed there. They just kept grinding. Point emphasis we’ve really been talking about is defense. That’s one thing that can be consistent for us, and I think guys are starting to buy into that.
“And then what I really like there at the end, the mental toughness in our last two games, to just continue to work hard and persevere and hope, but not necessarily hope, but create opportunities to get the ball to drop for us when we needed them.”
Drew Siems credited the Tri County fans for traveling and creating a great environment that the players fed off of, and Coach Siems spoke highly of the tournament as a whole.
“Of all the venues that I’ve had the great opportunity to coach in, this is, by far, probably one of the loudest venues,” he said. “To communicate with your players, it is a challenge on the floor. I need water because I lose my voice, but just the support, the community support really makes it special. The kids step on the floor and they want to give it everything they have in those situations.”
Tri County lost four of its first 11 games, three of those losses coming by double digits. Since then, the Trojans have won four straight, avenging two of those earlier losses in the MUDECAS Tournament. Drew said this week gave the Trojans confidence they can compete against anyone.
“The first part of the season, we just weren’t playing the way we wanted to be playing,” Coach Siems said. “We’ve made some changes, some pretty big changes on both ends of the floor that kind of fit our personality, I think, a little bit better, but we’re getting better every day, and I think this week is a step in that direction. Sacred Heart, incredibly tough team; Freeman goes without saying, and then Johnson-Brock, so we just want to get a little better every day, and I think this week helped us do that.”
Freeman won the third-place game over Exeter-Milligan-Friend 65-42 earlier on Saturday. In the B Division, Lewiston beat Southern 49-38 in the championship, while Humboldt-Table Rock-Steinauer beat Parkview Christian 47-43 in the third-place game. In the girls tournament, Freeman beat Tri County 46-28 in the A championship while EMF topped Pawnee City 39-24 to capture the B Division crown.
“My teammates and my coaches kept giving me motivation that I’m going to get some shots to drop soon. I just kept shooting, kept my confidence up.”
Drew Siems had 27 points, nine rebounds, and five steals in Tri County’s 53-51 win over Johnson-Brock to claim the A Division… pic.twitter.com/zP9TnbPZ3d
— Hurrdat Sports (@HurrdatSports) January 18, 2026
