CLARION — The Moniteau High boys basketball team was playing just its third game in four weeks.

Rust? Not here. Playoff jitters? Not from these Warriors.

Moniteau broke out to a big lead early and nursed it in the second half on the way to a 64-38 win over Redbank Valley in the District 9 Class AA semifinals at Tippin Gymnasium on the campus of Clarion University Monday night.

"The way the kids have worked all season long, I wasn't too worried (about the layoff)," said Moniteau coach Randy Armagost.

The Warriors (22-3) played Feb. 2 against Karns City, then Feb. 10 against Cranberry before a 17-day break before their first playoff game Monday.

Now, they will have to wait just four days to play for the District 9 title against Keystone, a 59-50 winner over Brookville in the first game Monday night.

The wait has been much longer for Armagost and his star player, Tyler Grossman.

The two dreamed of a chance to play for a district title four years ago. Now, it is one game away.

"When Tyler was a freshman, we talked about it. We wanted a league championship and a district title," Armagost said. "We've been talking about it every other day since."

Grossman made sure there was going to be a title game for the Warriors.

The senior guard scored 11 points in the first quarter as the Warriors stormed out to a 17-7 lead.

He added six more points in the second quarter and was outscoring Redbank by seven (17-10) at halftime.

He finished with 25 points to lead all scorers.

"We wanted to play a zone hoping to force them to shoot the ball a little bit," said Redbank Valley coach Don Wanninger. "They've been off for almost three weeks, so we thought they might be rusty. We didn't get a chance to see if the other four guys were rusty because Tyler was shooting the lights out."

The Bulldogs shot like the lights were out.

Redbank Valley hit a woeful 4-of-25 shots from the floor in the first half. The Bulldogs were held to just 10 points at the half and trailed by 19.

But Redbank Valley (15-11) made a run to start the third quarter, scoring as many points in the first three minutes of the third quarter as it did in the first 16 minutes of the game to cut the lead to 15.

But that was as close as the Bulldogs came to challenging the No. 1 seed in the tournament.

"We just needed to be a little more aggressive on offense," Wanninger said. "We were settling of the 17-, 18-foot jump shots, and you can't win many games like that."

What shots Redbank did take in the first half either missed or were swatted away.

Barry Jones had four blocked shots and Grossman had three more. In all, Moniteau blocked 10 shots.

Grossman also had 10 assists.

REDBANK VALLEY 38Skyler Smith 0-4 0-0 0, Nick Johnston 6-11 1-3 14, Josh Riggle 1-6 1-2 3, Brock Reed 0-5 0-0 0, Bryan Doverspike 1-2 0-0 3, Joe Monteleone 0-6 0-0 0, Brenton Shirey 0-1 1-2 0, Ethan Rowe 1-3 3-3 5, Mike Booher 1-6 1-2 3, Mike Goth 2-7 0-1 6, Brandon Doverspike 1-6 1-2 2. Totals: 13-57 7-15 38

MONITEAU 64Matt Buczkowski 3-5 0-0 6, Zach Thompson 3-8 2-2 8, Tyler Armagost 0-2 0-0 0, Matt Schandelmeier 5-8 1-3 11, Garth Kohlmeyer 1-2 2-2 5, Tyler Grossman 10-19 2-3 25, Barry Jones 2-4 0-0 4, Barry Jones 2-4 0-0 4, Adam Cousins 0-0 0-1 0, Nick Morrow 1-2 0-0 2, Josh Loos 0-0 0-0 0, Clay Campbell 0-0 0-1 0, Aaron Randall 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 25-49 7-11 64

3-point goals: Johnston, Bryan Doverspike, Goth, Kohlmeyer, Grossman 3

Friday: Moniteau vs. Keystone, District 9 Class AA championship game at Clarion, 7:30 p.m.