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.
