Tag: Mount Vernon Mountaineers

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — For the first time since 2012, the Mount Vernon girls basketball team will be playing for a chance to win a state title after the fourth-seeded Mountaineers knocked off top-seeded Vashon 78-55 in the Class 4 semifinals at JQH Arena on Friday.

“I can’t explain it to you,” Mount Vernon senior point guard Lacy Stokes said with a smile when asked what it meant to play for a state title. “We talked about it before the game and said we cannot lose. This is the time. I want to put a state title banner up in our gym so badly. We have so many people from our community supporting us. We just want to do it for them, for Coach B (Grant Berendt) and for each other. It’s unbelievable.”

“This means everything,” third-year Mount Vernon coach Grant Berendt said. “I wouldn’t be here without the kids or the support from the community, the school and the student body. If you were here and you looked up, there was a sea of green. They were loud and proud, and our kids fed off of that. It’s a tradition-rich school and basketball program. … For us to have a chance to win a state title, they’re excited. The first thing they said in the locker room is they weren’t done yet.”

The Mountaineers (28-3), winners of 15 straight, needed less than three minutes of game action to take their first lead over the Wolverines (17-2) when Ellie Johnston stepped into a 3-pointer from the wing off the assist from Stokes, a Missouri Southern commit, at the 5:11 mark. Johnston led Mount Vernon with eight points in the first period, knocking down a pair of triples to help her team take a 16-13 lead into the second quarter.

“She is a great shooter and the last couple of games, it just hadn’t been falling for her,” Stokes said when she asked her thoughts on seeing Johnston make her first two 3-point shots. “We talked before the game and I told her this is the one. If you want to hit, this is the game. When she came out and hit those first two, her confidence went up and our confidence went up as a team because we just support her so much. After that, when a shot left her hand, we were all confident it was going in.”

Mount Vernon never relinquished the lead it gained early in the first quarter, stretching it to 23-13 with 5:34 to play in the first half after starting the second period on a 7-0 run. Stokes and Johnston each scored inside before Stokes knocked down a 3-pointer from the top of the key off a ball screen to push the lead to 10.

The Mountaineers held the double-digit advantage off and on throughout the second quarter until the Wolverines found momentum for the first time in the form of a 6-0 run, with Kanitra Barnett accounting for four, in the later stages of the first half to trim the lead to 27-23.

Johnston came up big from the perimeter again for Mount Vernon, splashing back-to-back 3-balls to stretch the lead back to 10, 33-23, inside the final minute of the first half before taking a 33-26 lead into the intermission.

“(Vashon) didn’t come into this game 17-1 for no reason,” Berendt said. “We knew they were going to get something going, but we wanted to limit it and not bail them out on some things. I thought we withstood that and did a great job of answering.”

Vashon cut Mount Vernon’s seven-point halftime lead to one possession several times early in the third quarter, but every time it looked like the Wolverines were about to swing the momentum, the Mountaineers, who never allowed a game-tying or go-ahead bucket, answered right back at one end or the other to keep the Wolverines at bay.

“Defense travels,” Johnston said. “We knew we had to d-up to stop them and win this game. We did just that. Our bigs are not that big, but they did amazing against their tall girls. I am proud of them because that helped us a lot.”

Mar’shaun Bostic, an Auburn University recruit, scored inside for Vashon to trim the Mountaineer’s lead to 38-36 with 4:50 left in the third before Mount Vernon responded with a 7-0 run to push the lead back to nine. Lisa Kruger started the run with a bucket in the paint before Stokes followed with a deep 3-ball from the wing and a mid-range jumper to make the score 45-36.

Vashon’s Raychel Jones converted from the perimeter with 1:20 left in the third to cut the deficit to 48-45, but Raegan Boswell buried a 3-pointer on the other end with Stokes adding two makes from the stripe to give the Mountaineers a 53-45 lead heading into the final eight minutes of action.

“She shot that with the utmost confidence,” Berendt said of Boswell’s 3-pointer. “She didn’t hesitate. The pass hit her and she swung into it just like we work on in practice. .. That was a big one for her.”

The Mountaineers were sent to the free-throw line 24 times as a team in the fourth quarter, converting 17 charities to push the lead to more than 20 points in the waning minutes of the contest, pulling away to the win while making school history in the process. 

“I kept looking up at the clock and kept thinking, ‘Golly’,” Stokes said with a laugh. “I felt like we were at the five-minute mark for 10 minutes. It was just free throw after free throw and the clock kept stopping. I was worried they may go on a run, but we locked in on defense to make sure they didn’t.”

“Usually, we play fast,” Johnston added about the slow-paced second half. “The tempo was much slower (in the second half). I didn’t even run out of breath that much. I thought it felt good because the tempo was slowed but we were still getting good shots or looks out of it.”

STAT LEADERS

Stokes finished with a game-high 39 points on 8-of-12 shooting from the field, including two 3-pointers. The bulk of her scoring came from the charity stripe, as Stokes made 21 free throws in the win and 16 alone (10 straight at one point) in the fourth quarter. She added six rebounds, five steals and four assists.

Johnston closed the game with 18 points, making all four of her 3-point attempts in the win. 

“They wanted this opportunity,” Berendt said of Stokes’ and Johnston’s performances. “That is all they have talked about—doing what it takes to get this opportunity of playing together with their team on this floor in this environment in front of their fans.”

Boswell finished with eight points and a team-high nine rebounds to go along with two steals.

Bostic and Nariyah Simmons led Vashon with 14 points each, with Simmons adding three assists, three steals and three rebounds. Kiyah Cooper added 12 points in the loss.

FOR ALL THE MARBLES

Mount Vernon takes on Boonville (26-2) in the Class 4 state title game at 4 p.m. on Saturday at JQH Arena. Boonville defeated Benton 48-44 in the other semifinal game.

“It means the world to me,” Johnston said. “I am speechless because I am so excited I’ve gotten to experience this with my best friends.”

MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — Trailing by 11 points early in the second half in the midst of a Blair Oaks’ 7-2 scoring run, the Mount Vernon girls basketball team was at a crossroads—find consistency on both ends of the floor to flip the momentum and get back into the game, or watch their impressive season end in the Class 4 quarterfinal round on Saturady.

The Mountaineers chose the former, vaulting back into contention behind a 14-2 surge led by a steadfast defensive effort and the dynamic scoring of senior Lacy Stokes, a Missouri Southern commit, to take a one-point lead into the fourth quarter. 

Mount Vernon found itself up 46-44 with nine seconds left in a free-for-all fourth quarter with Blair Oaks’ Autumn Bax shooting free throws. Bax made the first charity shot to cut the lead to one but missed the second, with the Falcons grabbing the rebound and missing a followup shot from the baseline. After a scrum, the 50-50 ball found its way into Stokes’ hands, who dribbled in a sprint to the far side of midcourt to run the waning seconds off the clock before being bombarded by teammates as the Mountaineers clinched a 46-45 come-from-behind win over Blair Oaks for a trip to the Class 4 semifinal round.

“It just means everything to me,” Stokes said. “I can’t put into words what it means to be here. We lost my freshman and sophomore years, and we thought we were going to do it my junior year, but we choked it out. We finally have our foot down, pushing all of the momentum in the right direction. Everyone wants it just as much as our three seniors.”

AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR

The win marks the 14th straight for Mountaineers (27-3), who are returning to the Final Four for the first time since 2012. Mount Vernon will battle Vashon (17-1) in the semifinal round at 6 p.m. on March 19 at JQH Arena in Springfield.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Mount Vernon coach Grant Berendt said about making it to the Final Four. “I have been there as an assistant a few times but never as a head coach. I am super proud of our kids. Since Lacy and Ellie (Johnston) were little kids, they’ve talked about doing this. A lot of them were in the stands watching the 2012 team go all the way and win it. … We broke through this year. We had to claw and scratch to do it, but it is an unbelievable feeling.”

HOME SWEET HOME

The last time Mount Vernon played on its home floor, it clinched a district championship with an 84-23 win over Seneca on March 6. The Mountaineer seniors never anticipated another chance to play in front of the home crowd. Under normal circumstances, quarterfinal games are played at a neutral site, but because of COVID protocols, Mount Vernon girls basketball was able to give the community one of the most meaningful wins ever in the final home game of the 2020-21 season.

“After the district championship, I didn’t think we’d be playing on this floor again,” Stokes said. “When we heard we were hosting a quarterfinal, we thought it was one last go around on this court for the seniors. It was big for us to get to do it. … My favorite thing to do is to put banners on that wall. To get to put as many as I have, I can’t put it into words.”

“It means more than anything because I don’t know if it will ever happen again,” Berendt said when asked about earning this type of win in front of the Mount Vernon faithful. “The one good thing about COVID is we got to host the quarterfinals. That never happens in basketball. To have the home crowd here, for us to be able to come back in this environment, I don’t know if it happens on a neutral floor. For our seniors, to go out with two big wins — a district championship and quarterfinal win — at home. Man, that’s special.”

EXPERIENCED IN ADVERSITY

While most teams might crumble under an 11-point deficit in the second half of a state tournament game, Mount Vernon used very recent experiences to draw from when rallying back against Blair Oaks on Friday. In the sectional round, the Mountaineers trailed Ava by seven points to start the second half before recovering to earn a 53-49 victory. 

“If we don’t win like that at Ava, we don’t win today,” Berendt said. “We haven’t faced a lot of second-half deficits in the last month of the season. For us to have one in a big game and get that monkey off our back in the sectional, if we can’t come from behind from something like that, we don’t win this one because we wouldn’t have been there before and our kids wouldn’t have that feeling.”

SCORING LEADERS

Stokes led the way for Mount Vernon with a game-high 19 points, 17 of which game in the second half. Kruger finished in double figures with 10 points, while Ellie Johnston scored eight. 

Malorie Fick led Blair Oaks with 18 points, while Bax finished with 10. Bailey Rissmiller scored eight.

HOW THEY GOT THERE

The first shot of the game found nothing but twine on a 3-pointer from Johnston, and after makes from Raegan Boswell and Cameryn Cassity, the Mountaineers held a quick 7-2 lead.

Blair Oaks stormed back to close the quarter with an 11-8 lead behind two 3-pointers from Fick and an inside score from Natalie Heckman.

The Falcons pushed the lead to seven nearly three minutes into the second period after a score on the drive and a transition 3-ball from Fick made the score 18-11.

Mount Vernon whittled the lead down to two, 22-20, after a 9-4 run fueled by the play of Kruger, who had three baskets inside the paint as well as several rebounds and defensive stops.

“I can’t speak enough on our posts,” Stokes said. “It’s all heart for them. Lisa has a huge heart and works her butt off inside. I couldn’t be more thankful to have her on the team this year.”

Rissmiller scored consecutive baskets inside the final minute of the first half to send Blair Oaks into the intermission with a 26-20 lead.

A 7-2 run by the Falcons to open the third quarter put the Mountaineers in a 33-22 hold with 6:12 on the clock. 

Stokes hit her stride offensively in the third quarter, kicking off Mount Vernon’s game-changing 14-2 run with a mid-range jumper from the free-throw line. After the first of four turnovers by Blair Oaks, Stokes found Boswell inside for a score to trim the lead to 33-26.

Heckman and Stokes traded two makes from the free-throw line before Johnston knocked down a runner in the paint to cut the lead to 35-30 with 4:30 on the clock. Stokes proceeded to bury back-to-back 3-pointers from the corner to ignite the crowd and give Mount Vernon it’s first lead since early in the first quarter, 36-35, with 2:10 on the clock.

“My confidence was kind of down going into the half,” Stokes said of her play in the first two quarters. “I felt like we were a second-half team all season. So coming out, Coach B lit a fire under our butts in the locker room. We just had to believe. He put that confidence in us to take the shots we did and luckily they went in.”

Stokes added a third 3-ball shortly after and the Mountaineers went into the fourth quarter with a 39-38 advantage.

“That is what you want your senior point guard, a 2000-point scorer, to do in a game like this,” Berendt said about Stokes’ play in the second half. “You want them to put you on their back and get you back into it. It took all of us, but it takes a gutsy kid to make a shot when you have six feet flying at you in the corner.”

The Falcons scored the first four points in the fourth quarter behind a 3-pointer from Fick to regain the lead, but Stokes tied things up at 42-42 again with another 3-ball of her own.

Blair Oaks added a basket inside before Stokes found Kruger in the paint near the five minute mark to tie the game for the final time at 45s. A free throw by Cassity shortly after gave Mount Vernon the lead for good.

“If we don’t have Lisa Kruger in the last two games to battle 6(-foot)-1 against Ava and 6-1 here, we don’t win those games,” Berendt said. “To have a 5-10 kid who is strong and won’t allow a kid to overpower her is huge. huge.”

Stokes added a free throw with 2:47 left to push the lead to 46-44 and that was the last point scored until Bax’s free throw with nine seconds left.

AVA, Mo. — It has been a long time coming for the Mount Vernon girls basketball team. 

After falling in the sectional round for four straight seasons to Strafford, the Mountaineers are heading to the quarterfinal round after rallying from a seven-point deficit at halftime behind a dominating performance from senior Lacy Stokes to earn a thrilling 53-49 Class 4 Sectional 6 win on the road in a raucous environment.

“It’s a huge win,” Mount Vernon coach Grant Berendt said to SoMo Sports. “It’s a monkey off the girls’ back. They have been in this game. … It’s heartbreaking to get here and be so close. Last year, we were up at half and had a bad third quarter and just couldn’t get it done. 

“Ava came out and punched us in the mouth and made us rethink some of the things we were doing. They challenged our toughness. We came out in the second half and the kids really stepped up across the board. The start of the third quarter kind of shows that. Then in that fourth quarter, it was literally a dogfight, just back and forth. This win means a lot to this group.”

The fifth-ranked Mountaineers are now riding a 13-game winning streak, improving their record to 26-3. Ava’s loss snaps and 11-game winning streak, with the Bears closing the season at 21-6.

ELITE 8

Mount Vernon will take on Blair Oaks in the Class 4 quarterfinal round with a 1 p.m. matchup on Saturday at Mount Vernon High School. Blair Oaks defeated Eldon 62-46 on Wednesday. This the first trip to the quarterfinal round for the Mountaineers since 2012.

“Anytime you are playing in the Elite 8, it is a special thing,” Berendt said. “For us just to get two more days together, to practice, and then to play on Saturday is huge.

“In most years, that would be a neutral-site game at like an SBU or Drury. In a COVID year, it’s kind of weird but it worked out for us that we get to host. After we had our Senior Night, we didn’t know if we’d get back to our home floor. Having the opportunity to play (at home) in a quarterfinal game, that is so cool. It is such a neat feeling. When I broke the news to our kids, our seniors went nuts. They were so excited to get one more game on that floor.”

SCORING LEADERS

Stokes, a 5-foot-4 senior left-handed point guard who is committed to Missouri Southern, paced the way on both ends of the floor. She finished with a game-high 28 points to go along with a bevy of steals and assists.

“She is our point guard and she is our leader,” Berendt said of Stokes’ performance. “Her and Ellie Johnston are table setters for us on the offensive and defensive ends. … Lacy made plays late for us. That is what you hope your senior point guard does for you, your seniors in general. It took some guts and it took some courage for her to go do it. I am so happy for her that she was able to shine in a game like this.”

Ellie Johnston finished with 10 points, while Cameryn Cassity finished with nine points for Mount Vernon. Lisa Kruger added four.

Sara Mendel led Ava with 14 points, while Olivia Gastineau and Hannah Evans each added 10 points. Celia Fossett added seven.

GAME ACTION

Following a back-and-forth opening quarter that saw Ava holding a 19-17 following a 3-point with 35 seconds left by Evans, the Bears opened the second period on an 8-2 run to build a 27-19 lead three minutes in. Gastineau had a 3-pointer, while Keely Akers and Fossett each pulled down offensive rebounds for putback scores. Ava ultimately carried that pace into the intermission, leading 33-26 at the half.

“On the offensive side, I feel like we got some good looks,” Berendt said “Ava is known for it, but they run 99 percent halfcourt man, and they are good at it. They came out tonight and played a little different style of zone. … It was a really good call on their part. 

“On the defensive end, we knew they (rebounded) well and had to get second and third (opportunities). We didn’t do a good job of blocking out. I had to make some substitutions, and I brought in Lisa Kruger off the bench and she played a tremendous role for us. It neutralized part of their offense and really helped us. I think Lisa ended with four (points) but she did so much more for us on the defensive end.”

The tides turned in favor of Mount Vernon out of the gates in the third quarter, as the Mountaineers scored 10 unanswered points to take the lead. Led by a staunch defensive effort that forced Ava into nine total turnovers in the quarter, Mount Vernon held Ava off the scoreboard for the first four-plus of the second half.

“We take pride in our defense,” Berendt said. “We came into this game giving up 35 or 36 points a game on the year and we gave up 33 at half. We kind off talked about how we weren’t getting it done. We were doing things that weren’t typical of us, and we weren’t following the scout. We had to make some adjustments on some things we did defensively. … They responded.”

Stokes led the Mountaineers in the game-changing swing, kicking off the run with three steals for runout layups at the other end to trim the lead to 33-32. Mount Vernon took the lead shortly after when Stokes found Cassity inside for a bucket at the 6:01 mark. After another turnover by the Bears following a five-second count on an inbounds play under their own basket, Stokes found Cassity in the corner for a long 2 to push the lead to 36-33.

“She came out with a tunnel-vision focus on what she needed to get done,” Berendt said of Stokes’ start to the second half. “And our kids feed off her. … She is so smart with what she does defensively. … She is just a very, very smart kid who loves playing defense because she can create her offense off of her defense.”

After Ava reached the scoreboard following a pair of free throws from Mendel, both teams traded scores, with Mount Vernon holding onto a 43-40 lead following a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Lexi Gastineau to end the third quarter.

The fourth quarter proved to be a dogfight, with Ava landing the first blow. The Bears trailed 45-41 with 6:26 to play when Ava scored six straight points, four from Olivia Gastineau, to take a 47-45 lead with three and a half minutes to play.

Mount Vernon countered with the knockout punch, closing the game on an 8-2 run over the final two-plus minutes. 

Stokes tied the game at 47 with an elbow pull-up at the 2:08 mark before cutting across the lane for a left-handed scoop layup off the window to give the Mountaineers a 49-47 advantage.

Evans knocked down two free throws with 1:10 left to tie things back up, but Stokes came up big once again after getting the shooter’s touch on a runner with 36 seconds left to put Mount Vernon up 51-49.

“Late in the second half, I felt like (Lacy) settled for some jumpers,” Berendt said. “I just told her to attack. If the big kid is there, challenge her but be under control. I felt like she was (doing that) in that six-point run of hers. She had two acrobatic type of layups that she found glass and had nice spin on the ball, and then she had the really big go-ahead basket.”

After an empty possession by the Bears, Johnston, who was fouled to stop the clock, stepped up and knocked down two free throws with 3.9 seconds left to push the lead to two possessions, sealing the win in the process.

“We got the ball in Ellie’s hands because she is shooting about 81 percent from the free-throw line right now,” Berendt said. “That was huge to get it in her hands to ice the game.”