After dropping three of its last four contests, including a lopsided home loss to Kickapoo on Tuesday, Joplin got back to playing a brand of basketball it is more familiar with on the way to a 70-42 win over East Newton on Thursday inside Kaminsky Gymnasium.
While the offense was busy putting up points in transition, Joplin built a 24-10 lead by the end of the first quarter and pushed it to more than 20 by the intermission thanks to a stringent effort on the defensive end. The Eagles didn’t slow down in the second half, building a 27-point lead in the third quarter and putting it in cruise control down the stretch in the fourth quarter.
“Tuesday’s game was hard to take,” Joplin coach Bronson Schaake said. “I wanted to see how they’d bounce back. … We showed spurts tonight of really good basketball, which I thought would happen. We kind of got sloppy here and there, but (their) play showed me that they really want to do this. We can enjoy this win, then we have to get ready for Carthage next week.”
The win moves Joplin to a 13-5 record, with the Eagles traveling to Carthage on Feb. 1 to get back into Central Ozark Conference play. East Newton falls to 12-8 and hosts Cassville on Feb. 1.
SCORING LEADERS
Joplin finished with three players in double-figure scoring, led by All Wright’s game-high 18 points. LT Atherton added 12 and Brantley Morris finished with 10. Whit Hafer finished with eight points, while Always Wright finished with seven. Terrance Gibson closed with six points.
Gabe Bergen led East Newton in scoring with 17 points. Kelton Sorrell finished with five points.
GAME ACTION
Joplin wasted little time taking control of the game, scoring the first nine points of the contest and ultimately started the opening quarter on a 15-2 run. Atherton accounted for six on the points, while All Wright converted from the perimeter in the early onset to highlight the run.
“Right now, my vision for the program is to be a team that presses to get up and go,” Schaake said about the early surge. “We can do it in moments, so I said to them, ‘We might as well try it now and continue to do it going forward.’ I thought it got us energy and bouncing around more. I kind of wish we had finished better—we should have had a few more buckets—but I will take it.”
The Eagles pushed the first-quarter lead to 24-6 on a Junior Gilbert 3-pointer before consecutive East Newton scores from Bergen to close out the quarter trimmed Joplin’s lead to 24-10 to start the second period.
After both teams traded buckets early in the second period, Joplin scored nine straight points to push its lead to 23 points, 35-12, near the two-minute mark. Hafer started things off with a baseline dunk and a bucket on the inside before a driving score by Always Wright off a turnover. Morris knocked down a 3-pointer to close the run.
“We have to sustain that (defensive effort longer),” Schaake said. “In basketball, when you get a big enough lead, you start picking up some bad habits. In that stretch, that was really good defense.”
The Eagles ultimately took a 38-16 lead into the intermission after Always Wright buried an NBA-range 3-pointer from the wing at the sound of the horn.
Robert McFarland and Bergen scored out of the break to trim East Newton’s deficit to 18, but Joplin used a 12-3 run to push the lead to 27 with 2:30 left in the third period.
All Wright had a score off the drive and a 3-point from the wing off an East Newton turnover to start the surge. Atherton added four points and Morris converted from the perimeter to make the score 52-25.
The Eagles cruised to the finish line.
