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).
