Stephan Nedwetzky’s circuitous path to becoming a barbecue joint owner in tiny Van Alstyne, about an hour north of Dallas, has been filled with pitfalls and second-guessing. The native of Dallas’s Pleasant Grove neighborhood spent his adolescent years in Rochester, New York, but after leaving the Marines in 1999, he came back home to Texas. “Being a Texan, I missed barbecue so much,” he said. He starting smoking in his backyard in Plano while running a landscaping company. After entering a barbecue competition in 2010 (even though Nedwetzky describes everything he turned in as “horrible”), he caught the bug. “It started to interfere with my landscaping business,” he said. So he shut it down to focus on barbecue.

“Everyone either laughed at me or told me I was stupid,” Nedwetzky said of the response to his decision. He wondered if everyone was right until he served what he considered the perfect brisket at a pop-up event. Will Fleischman, then-pitmaster at Lockhart Smokehouse, tried it and was impressed. “That’s still the best one that I’ve ever cooked,” Nedwetzky said. When a second Lockhart Smokehouse location opened in Plano in 2014, Fleischman asked him to come aboard. Nedwetzky worked there and at Smoke in Plano in what he calls brief stints before getting his own food truck. He called it Pit Commander Barbecue, his original competition team name. Nedwetzky chose the name because people said his long beard gave him a resemblance to Phil “Duck Commander” Robertson from the Duck Dynasty reality show. The “pit” part refers both to the old brick pit his father, who was a mason, built at his childhood home and to the mosh pit he helped whip into a frenzy while playing guitar for the heavy-metal band Lethargy during his days in Rochester. Either way, he said the name is a heck of a lot easier to pronounce than Nedwetzky Barbecue.

Pit Commander struggled to make a mark in the DFW scene, so in the winter of 2016, Nedwetzky loaded up some Texas post oak and went to Fort Myers, Florida. His sister lived there and selfishly wanted some good Texas barbecue nearby. “That’s where it really took off,” Nedwetzky said. His month-long visit turned into six months. But the draw of Texas was strong, and he returned in the summer. That’s when Yolanda Russotti, a woman he knew from Rochester, came to visit. “The first time I tried his brisket, I was like, ‘Will you marry me?’ ” she said with a laugh. She moved to Texas a month later. They married and now have a young daughter together.

The family alternated between Florida and Texas and rotated between serving barbecue and slinging barbecue pizzas under the name Texapolitan Pizza. In 2019, Nedwetzky and Russotti found what they thought would be their permanent barbecue home in the East Texas town of Murchison, but they closed their restaurant there in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began. Nedwetzky couldn’t find a barbecue joint to hire him, so he worked for Chipotle by day and Pizza Hut by night to make ends meet. The couple headed back to Florida dejected, thinking they’d had enough of trying to succeed in Texas barbecue.

Then, out of nowhere, the State Fair of Texas emerged repeatedly in Nedwetzky’s dreams while back in Florida. “I kept waking up in the middle of the night smelling the fair,” he said. He checked the fair’s website last year and saw that it was accepting applications for new vendors. He submitted Texapolitan, and it was accepted. The couple took it as a sign to come back to Texas. After positive feedback from the fair’s organizers, the duo put a deposit down on a $30,000 wood-fired pizza oven from Italy. A month after moving back to Plano, they got word that a barbecue joint in downtown Van Alstyne had closed and the space was available. They took it and opened Pit Commander Barbecue last July.

As the couple started to build the business, they had to close the restaurant so they could serve at the fair in September. They made a daily average of 280 pizzas, topped with freshly smoked pork belly burnt ends, for 24 straight days. They credit the folks at Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que, a longtime fair vendor, for acting as their mentors and helping them through the process. Now they can’t wait for the fair to fire back up this year, but there’s plenty of barbecue to cook in the meantime.

Pit Commander Barbecue is open Thursday through Saturday for lunch. This past weekend was its most successful, with an early sellout on Saturday. I was there on Thursday for a second visit. The first, back in November, was a mixed bag of excellence and disappointment, but the restaurant was navigating a broken water line in the kitchen. This trip was far better, and I finally got to try those pork belly burnt ends from the famous State Fair pizza. They were perfectly cooked and heavily seasoned and glazed. The salt and sugar competed for dominance with the clean smoke flavor. I actually preferred the thick slice of pork belly, which Pit Commander sells as bacon brisket, an apparent homage to Dayne’s Craft Barbecue, in Fort Worth. It was more subtle than the burnt ends and seemed to melt on my tongue.

Nedwetzky is trying a few brisket suppliers to find the right quantity and quality of fat. He thought the lean side of what he was smoking this past weekend was on the dry side, and I agreed, though it was plenty tender, with a nice line of rendered fat on top. There will be a new brand of beef on the smoker this week.

Nedwetzky learned to make sausage at an old German butcher shop in Florida, and he uses those skills at the restaurant. I loved the jalapeño-cheese link, which was bursting with juice when I bit into it. Ask for it unsliced to get the most out of the experience. There were plenty of jalapeño chunks, but the spiciness was pretty tame. The bacon-wrapped jalapeños brought a bit more heat, and the bacon was nicely crisp. The tender spareribs got a hefty dose of rub and a splash of sauce, but the flavors dissipated in the foil wrap. I had planned to try the pulled pork, but it was off the menu. “We couldn’t sell a butt to save our lives,” Russotti said.

She makes all the sides, though most are Nedwetzky’s recipes. The potato salad was a bit soupy and spicy, which is how his folks like to make it. I liked the crunchy slaw, and the sweet broccoli salad was a good way to get something healthy. The mac and cheese made with creamy queso was tasty, but it was the pinto beans, in a savory broth spiked with chunks of tomatoes, onions, and brisket, that spoke to me most.

Russotti also makes all the sandwich buns from scratch. She uses a simple, Austrian-style white-bread dough to make knotted rolls. To me, it was reminiscent of a pretzel bun, though paler in color. It was perfect for the daily special of a thick, smoked brisket burger topped with American cheese, barbecue sauce, and pickles. The signature dessert is an Italian love cake, whose recipe is from Russotti’s family. To give it a Texas barbecue feel, Nedwetzky added bananas to the mix, creating Banana Love Cake and a potential rift in familial relations for messing with a recipe. I enjoyed it, though it wasn’t as sweet as I’d expected.

Van Alstyne is right in the middle of a dead zone for Texas barbecue along U.S. 75, and Pit Commander Barbecue fills the void admirably. When Nedwetzky and Russotti found the location, they hoped their joint could become a community favorite, but they knew it would take time for word to spread. Business is building slowly, but, Russotti said, “we’re still gambling on us, and we believe in what we’re doing.” If the barbecue joint flourishes, the next move will be a brick-and-mortar for Texapolitan Pizza. “Pizza is easier and the profit margins are insanely better,” Nedwetzky said, adding that making barbecue is more stressful than making pizza. So why not focus on pizza? “We’d still have to make barbecue for the pizza,” he said, so they might as well plan for both. Russotti said it’s also about building a solid foundation for their young daughter, who suffers from spina bifida. “We want to leave her something that’s going to take care of her for the rest of her life when we’re gone.” I think the community is up to the task, if only so we can keep a family of barbecue diehards in Texas and out of Florida.

Pit Commander Barbecue224 E. Jefferson, Van AlstynePhone: 972-400-0234Hours: Thursday–Saturday 11–3Pitmaster: Stephan NedwetzkyMethod: Oak in an offset smokerYear opened: 2022

Texas A&M Head coach Buzz Williams has seen it all in his basketball career, growing up in the small town of Van Alstyne, Texas, the journey to becoming one of the premier Division 1 coaches in the country came on the back of hard work, determination, and the willingness to learn and adapt.

After successful coaching stints at Marquette and Virginia Tech, Williams compiled 8 NCAA Tournament bids including an Elite 8 and 3 Sweet 16 appearances, and after the conclusion of the 2019 season, the Aggies came calling after Head coach Billy Kennedy’s dismissal, hoping to bag the native son for a program deeply in need of Williams’ program building prowess.

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In his first two seasons with the Aggies, depleted rosters combined with the rise of Covid-19 during the 2020 season provided Buzz with a much-deserved cushion, as his coaching acumen could be fairly judged during the next two seasons. In the midst of the 2021 campaign, the Aggies were struck with fierce adversity after enduring an 8-game losing streak in SEC play, with much of the blame thrown on the shoulders of Williams’ whether just or improper. However, after lineup changes and the rise of senior guard Quenton Jackson’s play, Texas A&M would go on to win 8 of 9 with a trip to the SEC Title game, all but sealing a spot in the NCAA Tournament, so they thought.

Without an automatic bid, the Aggies were painfully snubbed by the selection committee mainly due to their midseason collapse, and after accepting an invitation to participate in the NIT, William’s would go onto passionately defend the roster and the program after the team defeated Alcorn State in the first round of the tournament.

“After studying all this nonstop the last two days and looking at it from every vantage point, it defies logic that we are not in the NCAA tournament. What has transpired is wrong.”

However, the team responded to the outcome in the best way possible, as Williams’ led the group all the way to the NIT Title game in Madison Square Garden to face Xavier, losing a heartbreaker in the final seconds 73-72. With momentum building into the 2022-2023 season, the program gained five transfers from the portal during the offseason, including Julius Marble and Dexter Dennis, all while Henry Coleman III, Wade Taylor IV, and Tyrece “Boots” Radford would return, as Williams would now possess the deepest and most talented group in his fourth season, which would go on to define his legacy with the Aggies as we sit in late January, 18 games into the regular season.

Texas A&M started off 2-0, before a trip to the Myrtle Beach Invitational, even being ranked for the first under Buzz Williams at #24 in the AP poll, but after losses to Murray State, and Colorado, the preseason shine began to fade, yet the team would bounce back to win three in a row before December. As the schedule provided its toughest tests yet, The Aggies would drop 3 out of their next four games, including a painful home loss to Wofford, leading to a large portion of the fanbase clamoring for Williams to be placed upon the proverbial “hot seat”, Buzz’s memorable quote after the game would become the change agent for what is one of the greatest turnarounds in college basketball this season.

“We have to fight with more grit and more togetherness, and we need to do it for a longer time, and we need more guys to be able to do it.”

As major manufacturers of semiconductor chips expand with massive projects in Sherman just north of Van Alstyne, officials in the small southeastern Grayson County city are positioning to get in on the action.

The efforts underway in the city, whose motto is “Proud Past, Bright Future,” highlights how success on the economic development front in one city can provide opportunities that spill into surrounding communities.

“We see what Sherman is doing, and we’re looking to bring in companies and industry that supports the chip manufacturing,” said Rodney Williams, executive director of Community & Economic Development for Van Alstyne.

Van Alstyne, with a population of about 6,500, has had a couple of recent wins in the city’s Cold Springs Industrial Park, where construction is underway in a second phase. A new street linking the park to County Line Road is slated to open by the end of the month.

Allen Commercial Millwork will build a roughly 44,000-square-foot facility in the industrial park. DreamLine Windows & Doors, a manufacturer of glass doors and windows, is moving its headquarters and a manufacturing facility totaling more than 100,000 square feet to 7.5 acres the company bought in the industrial park.

DreamLine may also build an events center for the city on part of the property.

“They’ve been proactive with not only wanting to bring their headquarters here, but wanting to engage with the community, which is a nice partnership,” said Tiffany Chartier, executive administrator of Van Alstyne Community & Economic Development.

In Sherman, 15 miles north of Van Alstyne, Texas Instruments broke ground in May on what will ultimately be up to four new semiconductor wafer fabrication plants at a cost of roughly $30 billion. The project by Dallas-based TI is expected to create 3,200 jobs.

In addition, GlobiTech in June announced plans to build a $5 billion plant in Sherman that’s expected to create 1,500 new jobs and turn out more than 1 million silicon wafers monthly when production begins as early as 2025.

Williams and Chartier expect Van Alstyne’s already bustling single-family and multifamily housing market to get busier with the influx of workers at the semiconductor plants going in nearby.

Year-to-date through July, the number of single-family home permits in Van Alstyne is up 24% to 290, compared to 234 issued in the same time period last year.

Van Alstyne ended last year with 399 building permits, which was up sharply from 52 in all of 2018, 109 in 2019, and 156 permits in all of 2020.

In the interview that follows, Williams and Chartier discuss the developments in Van Alstyne.

What differentiates Van Alstyne and what’s driving its growth?

Williams:Van Alstyne is in a unique place because we're exactly equidistant from Grayson County and Collin County. We're 15 minutes from the county seat of each.

McKinney has a downtown historic downtown. We have one, and Sherman has one. So it's odd how we kind of mirror. Our downtown is actually laid out like McKinney's. We're not McKinney. Obviously, we're much smaller. But in recent years, we've seen what I call a suburban flight. We've seen quite a few move-ins from as close as Prosper, definitely Dallas, Allen, and California. A lot from California. Our residential numbers are blowing up. We have a lot of ETJ (extra-territorial jurisdiction) land. We have 70 square miles of ETJ.

How is your economic development structured in Van Alstyne?

Williams: We have CDC (Community Development) and EDC (Economic Development). Since we're under 20,000 (population), our CDC is commercial and retail, quality of life projects, all in one. EDC is strictly focused on industrial manufacturing. That's our industrial park. It's an 80-acre park. We just purchased Phase II, which was 40 acres, probably two years ago. We continue to go through the park and link two roads, 3133 and FM 377, which will be a feeder straight to 75. That is just about to open, which is a big deal for us.

How will that work?

Williams: FM 377 becomes County Line Road, and County Line Road goes straight to 75. The city is working with the county to straighten it and widen it. We're hoping to move 90% of our truck traffic, and semi traffic, down that road on the south end of town. That’s why this road is really important.

What’s the tie-in with Sherman?

Williams: Initially I thought we would have land for companies coming to support the Sherman project. That (industrial park land) sold out so quickly we don't. So we are going to be buying more land. We just took out a $2.4 million bond to buy more land to build more industrial, and we are looking to bring in companies and industry that support chip manufacturing.

We are unique because our south into town has been planned well. The south end of town is zoned industrial. We're trying to keep everything relatively clean. It's not green by any means. but we also are not doing cement batch plants and rubber plants and that sort of thing. So our next phase then, phase three of our expansion, is going to be expanding the industrial park. We're trying to get land around it now. And we're going to start trying to attract those chip manufacturers.

How is your housing market?

Williams: We've got land and we've got builders building homes anywhere from $230,000 to $2 million if you want. So these thousands of employees coming in to Sherman are going to need a place to live. We think we're set up. We've got an apartment complex called The Brooks that's expanding into phase II, adding 100 units. We see ourselves as being in a good spot to help that expansion to Sherman.

Chartier: It's a great place to live, work and play. It caters to the family who wants to get away from the city and have a home on, let's say, three acres. Or if you didn't want that, then you could have a little studio loft apartment in the city. It gives you both of those, depending on what you're looking for.

What’s your strategy for bringing in companies to support chip manufacturers?

We've just started the process of figuring out who we're talking to, what their needs are, and what companies will actually support these companies. We're probably the only town between Sherman and McKinney that has industrial land. So our next purchase, which we'd like to be 30 to 40 acres at least, really set that up to benefit what Sherman's doing. They've done such a great job, we just want to kind of play off that.

What type of companies?

We don’t know (yet). Companies that provide logistics, for instance. There are raw suppliers to the chip industry that provide the raw plastic and rubber and that sort of thing. Not rubber factories, but just providers. It's hard right now because while this has been announced and talked about for a while, they haven't started building anything yet. So we're still trying to figure out the parameters of what they need, who they need, and how much of it they need.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

Ranked by Population Growth Rate 2016-2020

Ranked by Total local employment

BI-DISTRICT

Region I

Southlake Carroll 61, Euless Trinity 48

El Paso Eastwood 31, Midland Legacy 20

North Crowley 54, Keller Fossil Ridge 46

El Paso Pebble Hills 53, San Angelo Central 52 OT

South Grand Prairie 77, Irving MacArthur 25

Little Elm Braswell 51, Flower Mound 46

Highland Park 52, Arlington Sam Houston 31

Coppell 41, Allen 38 OT

Wolfforth Frenship 64, El Paso El Dorado 39

Trophy Club Nelson 58, FW Boswell 56

El Paso Franklin 89, Odessa 44

Keller 56, Crowley 41

Hebron 57, McKinney 33

Richardson 74, Arlington Martin 38

Little Elm 50, Plano East 44

Dallas Lake Highlands 55, Arlington Bowie 47

Region II

Mansfield Lake Ridge 68, Pflugerville Weiss 44

Mesquite Horn 44, Wylie 39

DeSoto 81, Harker Heights 30

Rockwall 54, Wylie East 50

Cypress Springs 54, Spring Klein Oak 35

Conroe Oak Ridge 52, Houston Nimitz 35

Houston Langham Creek 51, Spring Klein Collins 38

Spring 45, Conroe 43

Royse City 57, Rowlett 33

Cedar Hill 56, Bryan 37

Sachse 37, North Forney 28

Waco Midway 57, Mansfield Legacy 55

Houston Westfield 53, The Woodlands College Park 22

Tomball Memorial 48, Katy Cypress Lakes 45 OT

Spring Grand Oaks 74, Aldine 25

Houston Cypress Ranch 66, Tomball 40

BI-DISTRICT

Region I

Lubbock Monterey 104, Plainview 64

El Paso Burges 59, El Paso Del Valle 16

Amarillo 86, Lubbock 35

El Paso Andress 39, El Paso Hanks 34

Mansfield Timberview 64, Lake Dallas 23

Granbury 66, Fort Worth Wyatt 17

Argyle 63, Midlothian 48

Justin Northwest 50, FW Arlington Heights 34

El Paso Bel Air 47, Canutillo 34

Amarillo Tascosa 51, Lubbock Coronado 39

El Paso Chapin 108, El Paso Ysleta 18

Lubbock-Cooper 90, Amarillo Palo Duro 57

Aledo 55, Everman 40

Colleyville Heritage 62, Mansfield Summit 45

FW Brewer 74, FW North Side 11

Midlothian Heritage 58, Denton Ryan 45

Region II

Mesquite Poteet 77, Dallas Hillcrest 28

Frisco Lebanon Trail 42, Frisco Lone Star 34

Dallas White 56, Dallas Spruce 9

Frisco Liberty 48, Frisco 24

Huntsville 65, Marshall 44

Princeton 47, Terrell 44

Mount Pleasant 82, Nacogdoches 44

Crandall 48, Denison 36

Frisco Memorial 52, Frisco Reedy 37

North Mesquite 51, Dallas South Oak Cliff 50

The Colony 49, Frisco Heritage 38

West Mesquite 51, Dallas Wilson 26

Red Oak 51, Lucas Lovejoy 35

Tyler 52, Lufkin 43

McKinney North 45, Forney 28

Longview 38, Kingwood Park 26

BI-DISTRICT

Region I

Canyon 68, Andrews 17

El Paso Austin (18-14) vs. Clint (19-12), 6 p.m. Tuesday, Austin HS

Seminole 67, Hereford 57

El Paso Mountain View (17-13) vs. El Paso Bowie (7-21), 6 p.m. Tuesday, Mountain View HS

Krum 49, Wichita Falls 17

Lubbock Estacado 56, Brownwood 38

Sanger 81, Springtown 17

Stephenville 66, Snyder 30

El Paso Riverside 77, El Paso YWA 30

Pampa 60, Midland Greenwood 48

El Paso Irvin (18-9) vs. San Elizario (13-20), 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Irvin HS

Amarillo Randall 81, Monahans 21

Glen Rose 90, Big Spring 4

Decatur 66, Burkburnett 26

Levelland 61, Mineral Wells 16

Bridgeport 66, Wichita Falls Hirschi 27

Region II

Dallas Oak Cliff Faith Family 68, Aubrey 32

Alvarado 58, FW Eastern Hills 21

Frisco Panther Creek 92, Arlington Summit International 19

Kennedale 63, Benbrook 30

Van 71, Sulphur Springs 35

Dallas Pinkston 47, Wills Point 34

Paris North Lamar 50, Mabank 33

Kaufman 50, Dallas Carter 35

Godley 59, Fort Worth YWLA 19

Anna 93, Dallas Hampton Prep 12

Fort Worth Dunbar 50, Ferris 44

Van Alstyne 83, Irving North Hills 21

Sunnyvale 72, Dallas Roosevelt 19

Canton 59, Texarkana Liberty-Eylau 46

Dallas Lincoln 58, Farmersville 30

Brownsboro 55, Paris 41

BI-DISTRICT

Region I

Lamesa 31, Stanton 28

Shallowater 35, Spearman 27

Littlefield 69, Kermit 27

Childress 53, Canadian 48

Peaster 77, Iowa Park 27

Merkel 54, Brady 33

Holliday 78, Millsap 41

Wall 61, Comfort 17

Idalou (22-12) vs. Dalhart (20-12), 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Amarillo West Plains HS

Muleshoe 68, Alpine 47

Bushland 60, Lubbock Roosevelt 21

Crane 57, Brownfield 49

Tuscola Jim Ned 69, Llano 9

Breckenridge 46, Bowie 39

Ballinger 50, Blanco 29

Wichita Falls City View 48, Brock 39 OT

Region II

Edgewood 38, Howe 21

Ponder 61, Dallas Madison 29

Pottsboro 52, Lone Oak 34

Whitesboro 57, Cedar Hill Newman 42

Tatum 52, New Diana 22

Mount Pleasant Chapel Hill 59, Hooks 27

Gladewater 53, Arp 45

Mount Vernon 65, Atlanta 34

Paradise 74, Dallas Life Oak Cliff 5

Gunter 65, Commerce 33

Cedar Hill Trinity Leadership (23-8) vs. Sadler S&S Consolidated (18-14), 6 p.m. Tuesday, Flower Mound Marcus HS

Emory Rains 48, Bells 47

Mineola 53, New Boston 44

Waskom 42, White Oak 39

Winnsboro 87, Queen City 33

Jefferson 37, Gladewater Sabine 34

Region III

Fairfield 83, Rogers 28

Mildred 48, Grandview 25

Little River Academy 44, Franklin 34

Malakoff 70, Keene 37

Hitchcock 65, Cleveland Tarkington 36

Nacogdoches Central Heights 72, Buna 34

Anderson-Shiro (18-9) vs. Van Vleck (12-18), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sealy HS

Lufkin Pineywoods Academy 46, Winnie East Chambers 26

Rice 61, West 40

Teague 34, Lorena 28

Scurry-Rosser 48, Maypearl 39

Mexia 60, Troy 36

Kountze (31-2) vs. Pollock Central (14-13), 8 p.m. Tuesday, Zavalla HS

Crockett (18-11) vs. East Bernard (18-14), TBD

Huntington 61, Warren 23

Boling (25-6) vs. New Waverly (18-6), 8 p.m. Tuesday, Navasota HS

BI-DISTRICT

Region II

Hamilton 55, Santo 29

Windthorst 46, Anson 38

Lipan 82, Italy 21

Cisco (25-6) vs. Seymour (23-8), 6 p.m. Tuesday, Mineral Wells HS

Como-Pickton 46, Clarksville 43

Lindsay 47, Honey Grove 26

Cooper 74, Maud 18

Wolfe City 50, Collinsville 38

Stamford 76, Petrolia 39

Frost 48, Tolar 30

Nocona 70, Haskell 25

Valley Mills 42, De Leon 16

Merit Bland (24-4) vs. Era (17-16), 7 p.m. Tuesday, Melissa HS

Detroit 34, Alba-Golden 33

Muenster 53, Whitewright 29

Quinlan Boles 61, Bogata Rivercrest 47

8-6A THIRD-PLACE PLAYOFF

Arlington Martin 42, Arlington Sam Houston 29

2-5A SECOND-PLACE PLAYOFF

El Paso Hanks 39, El Paso Del Valle 30

14-4A FOURTH-PLACE PLAYOFF

Farmersville 35, Nevada Community 24

This story was originally published February 12, 2023, 11:18 AM.

IRVING — After juggling a roller coaster of a first half on Tuesday, all it took for the Celina boys basketball team was to refocus.

The Bobcats blitzed Carrollton Ranchview early and often during a first quarter that produced a 12-0 start on the road. But the Wolves chipped away, generating a wealth of turnovers and shrinking that double-digit deficit down to one point by halftime, 23-22.

Celina responded as one might expect from a team gearing up for the postseason. The Bobcats spoiled Ranchview's senior night behind a 21-3 run that blew open an eventual 48-39 victory to close out the regular season on a winning note.

"We recommitted to the defensive end," said Landon DeMasters, Celina head coach. "It wasn't really anything I did. We allowed them to talk amongst themselves and refocus, and they responded well."

FINAL: Celina 48, Ranchview 39A choppy 1st half gives way to a resounding 3Q for @Celina_Hoops, stringing together a 21-3 run in the 2nd half to blow it open. Tahlan Jackson and Tyler Cross score 12 pts apiece to send Celina into the postseason on a winning note. pic.twitter.com/abRTt0vQOs

— Matt Welch (@MWelchSLM) February 15, 2023

The Bobcats did so by shoring up the areas that plagued them during the second quarter moments earlier. Celina was outscored by Ranchview 14-6 during that frame, surrendering its early momentum thanks in part to 13 first-half turnovers and a busy second quarter on both ends of the floor from Wolves sophomore Terry Shelton.

But in allowing 14 points in the second quarter, Celina exited halftime and limited Ranchview to just three points over a stretch of 11-and-a-half minutes. By that time, the Bobcats had built a 44-25 lead, shrugging off a tough shooting night from outside the paint by living at the rim through a cadre of fast-break opportunities.

Two of the catalysts for that effort were junior Dean Hamilton and freshman Tahlan Jackson, pushing the pace off missed shots by the Wolves to generate either a fast-break layup or a trip to the free throw line.

"One of the differences in practice this week was to get out in transition and play faster," DeMasters said. "I think we did a good job of securing rebounds and pushing the ball out in transition. Our guards did a really good job with that."

End 3Q: Celina 34, Ranchview 25Bounce-back quarter for the Celina defense, which allows just 3 pts. Tahlan Jackson continues to put in work in transition, finishing this steal to boost his total to 12 pts and 3 stls. @Celina_Hoops pic.twitter.com/kHzAjwBWBV

— Matt Welch (@MWelchSLM) February 15, 2023

Having two floor generals the caliber of Hamilton and Jackson helped plenty in that effort. Jackson recorded 12 points and three steals in the win, while Hamilton chipped in four points, nine rebounds and four assists.

"They're high basketball IQ kids. They run the culture for us and play hard," DeMasters said. "Tahlan is just a freshman, so we're looking forward to having him a few more years. Dean is probably the leader of our team and our heart and soul, so having those two on the floor at the same time and making the decisions makes the game a lot easier for everyone else."

In fact, that one-two punch was instrumental in sparking Celina to a 12-0 start on Tuesday. Jackson got going early with seven first-quarter points, finishing off several assists from Hamilton in transition. Senior Nate Lazo added four of his eight points in the opening frame as well.

The Bobcats held Ranchview off the scoreboard for the first 5:19 of game time, but turnovers stagnated Celina's promising start as the Wolves countered with an 8-5 run to close out the first quarter. Ranchview carried that energy into the second, holding Celina to one make from the field during a six-and-a-half-minute stretch. A 3-pointer from Shelton gave the Wolves a brief lead at 20-19 with 1:45 to go in the half.

Shelton scored all 10 of his points in the first half, converting three shots from the field. The Bobcats, meanwhile, surrendered just four field goals total in the second half.

"It was just effort. Being in the right spots, diving on the floor, blocking out for rebounds, just giving more effort," DeMasters said.

The turnovers that plagued Celina early on fizzled in the third quarter, with the team coughing the ball up just twice during that frame. DeMasters also lauded his group's work from the charity stripe, shooting 19-of-26 on free throws. That included a 10-of-13 clip during the fourth quarter, with junior Tyler Cross earning numerous trips to the line en route to scoring 10 of his 12 points during the final frame.

Improvements in those areas was a welcome sign for DeMasters as Celina shifts its focus to the postseason, finishing its District 11-4A slate tied for third place with Van Alstyne at 5-5. The Bobcats and Panthers split their head-to-head series, and DeMasters said the two teams will settle that tie with a seeding game on Friday at a time and place to be determined.

The winner of that game will secure the No. 3 seed for the postseason while also avoiding a bi-district matchup with defending Class 4A state champion Faith Family.

"I'll feel a lot better when I figure out what place we're in. That's all that matters," DeMasters said. "It's been a long season and a grind, but the kids can now refocus on competing for something big and putting their efforts into that goal the rest of the way."