Joplin stepped up on the defensive end to lock Hillcrest down in the final three quarters to earn a 50-26 win over the Hornets on Thursday night inside Kaminsky Gymnasium.
The Eagles and Hornets went into the second period tied at 12s. Joplin’s defensive pressure limited Hillcrest to three total field goals in the second and third quarters combined, allowing the Eagles to build a 19-point advantage to start the final quarter. Joplin pushed the lead to more than 20 early in the fourth, cruising to the win.
“We saw a lot of good things tonight,” Joplin coach Luke Floyd said. “Defensively, about halfway through the second quarter and on, I thought we did a really good job, holding them to eight points in the second half.
“Offensively, it was a struggle, and it is going to be a struggle for us every night. It’s the unforced errors—the missed two-foot shots, the missed free throws and the unforced turnovers. Those are things we have to clean up because we are not good enough offensively to make up for those errors. We’ll continue to work on it and get better.”
With the win Joplin, which finished with four wins all of last season, climbs to within two wins of a .500 record at 6-8.
“I think we are fine,” Floyd answered when asked where he felt his team was at to this point in the season. “It’s all about perspective. What we keep trying to talk about is looking forward. … Everyday, we have to compete against ourselves and be the best version of ourselves that we can be. Once we get to that, the wins will take care of themselves.”
Nine different players scored for the Eagles in the win. Emma Floyd led Joplin with 10 points, with Brooke Nice and Brynn Driver each finishing with nine. Lily Pagan added seven points, while Isabella Yust scored six.
“It is huge, not only for this year but for the future,” Floyd said about continuing to need to see the balanced scoring throughout his rotations. “We have to have girls that can score. When we establish the program here and are at our best, we are going to have four, five or six girls right around double figures every night. We want to spread the ball around and be equal opportunity.”
Kiley Coffelt led Hillcrest with a game-high 12 points, while Faith Askin was second in scoring with six points.
After a first quarter filled with five lead changes, Joplin and Hillcrest were deadlocked at 12-12 heading into the second period.
The Eagles started the second quarter on a 10-3 run to build a 22-15 lead with 5:25 left in the half. Pagan started the run with a fast-break score off a turnover before Driver knocked down a 3-pointer off a Floyd steal. Following a 3-pointer from Coffelt, Driver scored inside and sank a triple from the top of the arc.
“We love for our defense to turn into transition basketball,” Floyd said. “If we could not set up in the half-court offense, that would be great. I thought we did a better job of pushing the pace tonight. We did have some breakaway opportunities.”
Coffelt knocked down another 3-ball before Joplin finished the second quarter out with the final five points fueled by buckets from Yust and Pagan.
As impressive as the defensive pressure was in the second quarter, it was even more formidable in the third quarter. Joplin and Hillcrest traded baskets to open the second half before the Eagles closed out the third quarter on a 10-1 surge to take a commanding 39-21 advantage. Yust and Nice each had four points in the third.
“In the first quarter, we were playing zone and just weren’t rotating well and weren’t all on the same page,” Floyd said. “(Coffelt) was getting wide open looks from the 3-point line. We switched to man and that cleaned some things up a little bit. … They were challenged at halftime to come out and take care of business. I thought they answered that call and really came out and got after it defensively.”
Bailey Ledford drilled a 3-ball to open the scoring in the fourth, pushing Joplin’s lead to more than 20 points for the first time, 42-21, and cruised the rest of the way. The Eagles held the Hornets to five points in the final quarter, making it three quarters of single-digit scoring for Hillcrest in the loss.
UP NEXT
Joplin hosts Pittsburg, Kansas, for a 7:30 p.m. tip on Tuesday inside Kaminsky Gymnasium.
