The McDonald County Lady Mustangs led from the opening tip and cruised to a 51-36 win over East Newton on Feb. 18 at MCHS. The game was a make-up of a scheduled Feb. 16 match-up that was postponed due to weather.
The win sets up a Big 8 Conference showdown against Carl Junction on Feb. 26 at MCHS.
"Again our defense set the tone," said coach Blake Short. "East Newton only had five losses coming into this game and are the number two seed in their district. They are a very good basketball team. I told the girls today that we beat them earlier shooting 33 percent because of our defense and if our defense did the same thing or better, our offense was going to be better -- and it was a lot better and our defense was better too. We did a lot of good things. We made some mistakes, but with high school kids that is going to happen."
Preslea Reece set the tone for the game hitting a three-pointer on the Lady Mustangs first possession. Coley Ickes then scored seven consecutive points for McDonald County to help give the Lady Mustangs a 14-6 lead at the end of the first quarter.
After East Newton cut the margin to 16-10 early in the second quarter, McDonald County closed out the half with an 11-0 run to take a 27-10 lead at intermission. Reece made five of six free throws during the stretch.
McDonald County led 41-21 after three quarters.
The win gives McDonald County an overall record of 18-6 and a 6-1 mark in the Big 8 Conference. The Lady Mustangs final regular season game is set for Feb. 26 when they host Carl Junction to decide the Big 8 Conference championship. Carl Junction is undefeated in conference play and a Lady Mustang win would give each team a share of the conference title.
"It's very exciting for the girls to have a chance to win conference," Short said. "After the early loss (39-36 to Aurora on Dec. 11) I knew the most we probably could do was share it because someone wasn't going to have a loss or have one at the most. I knew we could beat the rest of the teams if Aurora would lose and they got beat twice and we have taken care of business. Now we have a shot at the title in front of our home crowd."
Reece finished with 19 points and Ickes 14 while Baili Nelson also hit double figures with 10 to lead McDonald County. Rounding out the scoring were Cendy Garcia and Dakota Bunch with four each.
Kody Cooper led East Newton with 11 points.
Sports on 02/26/2015