The opening minutes of the third quarter couldn’t have gone any worse for the Wright City boys basketball team Tuesday against Chamois.

The final minutes of the game couldn’t have gone much better, and the No. 5 Wildcats beat the No. 4 seed in the first round of the Hermann Tournament, 66-64.

After trailing by two at halftime, the Wildcats gave up a 16-0 run to go down 46-28.

Center Nick Boland — the team’s only legitimate post player — was called for a technical foul after arguing a personal foul call.

Four minutes into the fourth quarter, senior guard Sean McDonald fouled out with his team down 13, and Wright City’s chances of advancing to the winner’s bracket were dwindling.

“We talked about coming out with some pressure at the start of the second half, and we just committed mental mistakes at the beginning of the half and dug ourselves a pretty big hole,” Wright City Head Coach David Evans said.

Wright City’s mental mistakes were suddenly swapped for Chamois physical mistakes, as the Pirates couldn’t overcome the Wildcat pressure.

“We utilized our timeouts late in the game to calm the boys down, and they got into our press,” Evans said. “It’s not a go-to thing for us, but I told them this game was going to come down to who outworks who, and we pressed them the entire fourth quarter and they were able to keep their intensity up.”

A David Liddell layup, followed by a steal and another layup, led Chamois to take a timeout with 2:35 left and a 57-51 lead.

Moments later, Devon Holmes knocked down a 3-pointer to cut the Wright City deficit to 59-55, and the Wildcats began fouling to stop the clock.

Chamois hit one of two free throws, and Liddell answered with a 3.

Holmes hit a jump shot on the following possession to get Wright City within one, and Cameron Cole hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with under a minute to play the next time down the court.

Liddell and Holmes led Wright City with 22 points each, including a combined 24 points in the fourth quarter.

“The third quarter the rim was just closed,” Evans said. “They weren’t great shots and they didn’t go in. But in the fourth quarter they just hustled, and that’s what helped them win the game.”

The frantic defense in the fourth quarter was born from desperation, not calculation.

But Evans hopes it can become a staple of his program in the future.

“I’ve noticed in high school basketball that the ability to press and break a press is the line between good and bad teams,” he said. “We’ve got athletic kids, we just have to get them to be able to run it and be smart with it. The bad thing about a press is that if it gets broken, you give up easy baskets.”

The Wildcats advanced to play No. 1 Montgomery County Thursday at 6 p.m.

The third-place game is scheduled for Saturday at 5:30 p.m., followed immediately by the championship.

“We saw some things in Montgomery’s win over New Haven that hopefully we can do Thursday,” Evans said. “Every win feels good. It’s good for our kids. We need to develop that winning pride in our district, and these kids are working hard for that.”