CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Carthage Tigers opened their home shootout tournament with a 44-34 win Thursday night over Olathe East.
Carthage scored the game’s first nine points, never trailed, and the Tigers earned a 29-14 edge from the first and fourth quarters.
“Some of that is early season,” Carthage coach Scott Moore said. “We hit some lulls in our offense. I thought our press and energy were good early, then we got a little tired in that second quarter. Third quarter, I thought both teams were a little sluggish and both teams made some changes. I liked that we finished strong again.
“We’re kind of young and old. We have two seniors and then a bunch of sophomores that play and one junior in the rotation. Not a lot of varsity experience for some of those kids, so to finish against a relatively experienced team like that was impressive. We’ll be a much better team when we can play more consistently through the second and third quarters.”
Sophomore guard Maggie Boyd came through for the Tigers in a big way with a career-high 22 points, half of which she scored in the fourth.
“Maggie played a great game,” Moore said. “I thought she had great energy throughout and then executed well. When she’s hitting her threes, she’s a really talented player because she’s good off the bounce and she’s a good free-throw shooter. If she adds that third level, it makes her almost unguardable when she’s having nights like that. It’s great to see.”
Senior guard Kianna Yates added 16 points with 12 of them scored in the first half.
“Kianna Yates had a Kianna Yates game,” Moore said. “She distributed the ball well, scored when needed, knocked down a lot of free throws, and then played great defense whether on or off the ball. She’s always around the ball, and she keeps us all together defensively. It’s nice to have her in control of our offense and our defense.”
Boyd and Yates combined for 38 of the Tigers’ 44 points.
Olathe East (Kansas City, Kansas) received 12 points off the bench from freshman Katie LeFever.
Carthage (2-0) returns to action Friday against Sunrise Christian Academy (Bel Aire, Kansas).
“We’re excited about the six teams that are here,” Moore said. “We’ve got some state championship teams from previous years. We’ve got some teams from out of state that we don’t normally get to see.
“We’ve got two tough games to go. We’ve got to recover from what was an up-and-down energy battle (against Olathe East) and recoup in 24 hours to get back out there against Sunrise Christian, who probably weren’t happy with the way they played (against Bentonville) so they’ll be out to play better. We’re going to have to play better to beat them.”
Carthage closes out the three-day shootout Saturday with Arkansas school Bentonville.
WEBB CITY 39, EL DORADO 35
The Webb City Cardinals built a 15-point lead early on in the second half and survived a scare in the fourth quarter during their season-opening win on Thursday in the opening game of the Carthage Lady Tigers Shootout against the El Dorado Springs Bulldogs, the defending Class 3 state champions.
Webb City came out with six of the first eight points after halftime for a 28-13 lead, then El Dorado Springs went on a 14-0 run over the remainder of the third and the first 41 seconds of the fourth to make it 28-27.
The Cardinals made enough baskets (namely from their 6-foot-5 sophomore post Sami Mancini before she fouled out with 1 minute, 15 seconds remaining in regulation), free throws (including four by junior Mia Robbins), and defensive plays down the stretch to build their lead back up and earn their first win of the season.
“El Dorado Springs is a very good basketball team and they’re very well-coached,” Webb City coach Lance Robbins said. “We knew that coming into the game. They won a state title last year, and we knew they were going to come out and compete. We talked at halftime about the fact that we were up 11 (22-11), but that team lost some kids from last year’s team, but they’ve still got some experience and they were going to come out and compete and fight.
“They did a lot better job defensively in the second half, and we struggled to score. Finally, we were able to get the ball inside to our big a little bit and get some buckets. That was the difference in the game. We made some key free throws at the end of the game and got some stops on the defensive end.”
Mancini, who had at minimum a five-inch height advantage on every El Dorado Springs player, led Webb City with 15 points.
Kate Brownfield added nine points, Kirra Long five, Mia Robbins and Malorie Stanley four each, and Izzy Lopez two.
El Dorado Springs senior Macie Mays poured in a game-high 24 points and she netted 11 straight points during that 14-0 run in the third and fourth on her way to 16 second-half points.
At times Thursday, Webb City and El Dorado Springs resembled a pair of teams in their season openers.
“It was very ugly on both ends to start the game with missed layups and some turnovers,” Coach Robbins said. “Once both teams got settled in a little bit, the game started to flow better. There are definitely some things we can build on from this game and things we can work on to get better.”
El Dorado Springs went long stretches during both the first and second quarters without a made field goal, which allowed Webb City to double up the score in the first half.
Webb City returns to shootout action Friday and Saturday against Bentonville and Olathe East.
“We’ve got a good game each day,” Coach Robbins said. “We’ve got Bentonville, one of the better teams in Arkansas in their class last year (Class 6). They will be a challenge for us. We’ve got Olathe East on Saturday. We play a tough schedule early hoping that it will prepare us for our conference (Central Ozark Conference) and obviously districts late in the season.”
