WEBB CITY, Mo. — The third-seeded Bolivar Liberators turned up the heat in the second and third quarters during their 61-33 win Thursday night in the Class 5 District 6 quarterfinals against sixth-seeded McDonald County.
The Mustangs, a relatively youthful team with only two seniors in starter Megan Elwood and reserve Analisa Ramirez and winners of seven of their last eight games entering their district opener, were outscored 43-20 alone by the Liberators in the middle quarters, including 23-7 in the third.
Their fifth, sixth, and seventh points of the quarter arrived on freshman Carlie Martin’s shot near halfcourt to beat the buzzer.
McDonald County still entered the fourth behind 60-29.
“It stinks,” McDonald County coach Sean Crane said. “We’ve been playing really well, but we did not play really well this evening. It’s always frustrating, but with this group going forward … obviously, we’re losing two wonderful young ladies that we’re going to miss a lot, they’re great human beings, great people … we have a lot of young talent.
“I thought our freshman Carlie Martin played her butt off tonight. We’ll return four starters. We’ve got people coming back. Hopefully, we take these experiences and move on, but we came a long way this season.”
McDonald County trailed 17-9 after one quarter, but the Mustangs sliced their deficit in half during a quick span of time early in the second when they came up with a pair of consecutive steals and four points from Martin and Roslynn Huston.
“It looked like we were going to make a run,” Crane said. “That’s what we had to do against them. They’re so stinking big. Bolivar’s got a good ballclub. We thought if we could get out in space, we had some chances. We thought both Carlee Cooper and Carlie Martin could get to the rim at will. We just could never get into space consistently and that hurt us. Big thing is, Bolivar outplayed us.”
McDonald County’s season comes to an end with a record of 13-14 and the Mustangs improved by eight wins from the previous season.
Martin led McDonald County with 10 points, Huston added seven, Cooper and Elwood five each, freshman Tatym Trudeau entered the scoring column with a trifecta in the fourth, Natalie Gillming added two points, and Katelynn Townsend made a free throw for her lone point.
Bolivar saw three players reach double figures Thursday: 6-foot senior Cora Roweton finished with a game-high 22 points, 13 of them scored in the first half with nine in the third; freshman guard Carly Cribbs especially heated up from outside to score all 16 of her points in the second and third quarters; and 5-11 senior Dailynn VanDeren also punished a smaller McDonald County squad on the inside with 10 more points.
“It was for tonight,” Bolivar coach Ben Glasgow said of the focus on turning up the pressure defense. “Our last three games of the season, we played Kickapoo, West Plains, and Lebanon. They’re all really good and we just can’t do that (press) against them. We had it done to us and we’re not capable of giving it back, they’re just too big and athletic. When we face someone our class, our size, we’re going to try and do it.
“We had nine days off, so we wanted a lot of possessions tonight. I was going to live with some ugly things, but I wanted more possessions than normal.”
Crane said it was Bolivar’s 13 second-chance points in the first half that proved more responsible for the Mustangs’ 37-22 halftime deficit than Bolivar’s press, which hurt McDonald County more in the third quarter.
Bolivar (19-8) plays No. 2 seed and district host Webb City (17-10) in the semifinals at 2:30 on Saturday inside the Cardinal Dome.
Joplin remained in front until McDonald County tied it at 59-59 after Destyn Dowd made two free throws with 1:38 left following a foul by the Eagles. 
