Day: January 27, 2023

CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Carthage Tigers scored 24 of the game’s first 26 points on their way to a 76-28 win on Thursday against the visiting Seneca Indians.

Carthage scored 28 points in the first quarter, 16 in the second, 23 in the third and nine in the fourth, while Seneca produced seven points each in the first and second, five in the third and nine in the fourth.

“They’re missing both their point guards,” Carthage coach Scott Moore said. “That obviously puts them at a huge disadvantage, but we want to play how we play every game no matter who we play. The girls get tired of hearing me say it’s not who we play but it’s how we play.

“Regardless of the other team, coming out and putting 28-7 up in the first quarter sets the tone for the rest of the game and shows that we’re ready to play and that we want to dominate teams when they’re short-handed. It shows that we can play teams with that confidence when they’re fully loaded. We want to set that energy and tone early, so then (Friday) when we go up to El Dorado Springs, we come out and play with that energy early against a better team.”

Carthage senior Kianna Yates scored a game-high 22 points and sophomore Lexa Youngblood added 14, Lauren Choate 11, Ashlyn Brust nine, Maggie Boyd eight, Trisha Kanas six, Landry Cochran four and Zye Clark two points on a night when eight of Carthage’s nine players found the scoring column and five of them scored at least eight points.

Seneca senior Parker Long finished with 17 points to lead the short-handed Indians, who are 6-12 overall and on a six-game slide entering their home tournament next week.

“We tried to even out the minutes as best we can,” Moore said. “We’ve only got nine girls, so we’ve got to have a starter out on the floor at all times. I was proud of all the girls for being aggressive. Even some of the girls who didn’t score as many points were looking for their shot. I don’t think anybody played more than 20 minutes tonight, so we should have fresh legs (Friday against El Dorado Springs).

“Happy to see Kianna get her 22 points. It’s not easy to score that much when you’re only going to get 20 minutes at most. Great night for Lexa Youngblood, a career-high (14 points) for her. Lauren Choate shot the ball well, hit three 3s but only took about five so a good shooting efficient night for her.

“We’ve been working on our shooting, and I thought it showed today. We scored at all three levels well. We finished at the rim well, mid-range jumpers went down, and I thought our 3-point shooting was good. We were seven of maybe 20 tonight, and that’s better than what we’ve been shooting. Just proud all the way around of the energy for 32 minutes.”

Carthage improved to 9-8 overall entering Friday’s game against El Dorado Springs, a team 14-4 overall and ranked second in Class 3 with a six-game winning streak.

“We’re happy to play them because that’s a team that’s very much going to be like the teams in our conference,” Moore said. “We’ve only played two conference games. We’ve got seven more to go. El Dorado Springs will give us a good look. It prepares us for Webb City and Republic next week as we get back into conference.”

Carthage hosts Webb City on Tuesday and travels to Republic on Thursday.

The Tigers’ next five opponents are the second-ranked team in Class 3 (El Dorado Springs), a team receiving votes in Class 5 (Webb City), the third-ranked team in Class 6 (Republic), the top-ranked team in Class 5 (Carl Junction) and the seventh-ranked team in Class 6 (Nixa).

NEOSHO, Mo. — Neosho took a buzzer-beating lead into the second quarter and never looked back in a 57-38 win over McDonald County on Thursday.

Neosho (9-9) held a slim lead to start the second period before a late run in the first half gave the Wildcats a nine-point cushion to start the second half. The Wildcats extended the lead in the third quarter and pushed it to more than 20 points down the stretch.

“Up until this point, we have really been struggling with if we start out flat offensively, then our defense suffers,” first-year Neosho coach Daniel Durst said. “Then teams will build a lead on us, we will come out in the second half and fight to get it close and then get tired. We’ve really been hitting defensive and our defensive mentality hard in practice and it showed tonight because we started a little flat on offense, but we were playing hard enough on defense that we just held them until the offense got into a rhythm.

“It showed tonight that they are taking what we are harping on them about in practice into the games. I am super proud of this team. We lost Beclynn (Garrett), our point guard. She had surgery today. We have just been trying to figure out everyone’s new roles without her there. We have to share the ball a little more getting up the floor. I think today we had kind of a breakthrough there. We struggled at times, but we are getting where we need to be.”

The Wildcats finished with two players in double figures, with senior forward Karlee Ellick’s game-high 25 points leading the way for Neosho. Senior forward Reagan McInturff added 14 points in the win, while senior Raine Harris finished with six points.

Junior Anna Clarkson led McDonald County (6-11) with 10 points, while freshman Carlie Martin closed with nine in the loss. Junior Carlee Cooper finished with seven and senior Megan Elwood with six.

GAME ACTION

Neosho led for much of the opening quarter before McDonald County tied the game in the waning minutes. The Wildcats ultimately took a 12-9 advantage into the second period after Harris buried a 3-pointer from the top of the key at the buzzer.

“That was a huge shot for us,” Durst said of Harris’ 3-pointer just before the horn. “She is stepping up as a senior. Raine has been stepping up the last couple of weeks for us. So has Reagan McInturff and Maelynn Garrett. … Big shots like that from seniors on the team will drive us moving forward.”

The Mustangs rallied to tie the game at 15-all following a mid-range bucket from Martin and a score on the break by Cooper with 4:09 to play.

Neosho responded in a big way, swinging the momentum in its favor with a 10-0 surge to take a 25-16 lead into halftime.

McInturff kicked things off with back to back 3-pointers from the wing before Ellick added two buckets in the paint.

“When we get going, we get going,” Durst said of the run. “When Reagan gets hot, give her the ball. That’s our mentality. And when our outside is making shots, Karl will start sprinting the floor even harder than before and that kind of stuff really drives us. We have seen these type of runs from the girls all season.”

Neosho expanded its lead to 14 by the end of the third quarter. The Wildcats led by as 17 following an 8-0 run—with Ellick, who had 18 points in the second half, accounting for six of the eight points in the run—to make the score 40-23 with less than a minute to play. 

“Her play was great in the second half,” Durst said. “In the locker room, we just talked about her moving a little differently to get away from that weak-side help. She really bought into that and that was huge for us because when she gets going, we get going. She is our biggest motor that we have.”

The Wildcats started the final eight minutes on an 8-1 run to push the lead to more than 20, which Neosho played with down the stretch. 

“We were just preaching to be aggressive—getting the ball to the basket and not settling for bad shots when you can get (high-percentage) shots,” Durst said of his team’s play in the second half to expand the lead en route to the win. “We talked about attacking the basket and getting to the free-throw line, and I thought we did a good job of that.”

UP NEXT

Neosho is at Nixa on Monday.