McDonald County High School boys' basketball coach Kyle Fields said his team needed to cut down on its turnovers to pick up its first win of the season after opening with six losses.

Hitting 11 three-pointers didn't hurt.

The Mustangs used the long ball to steadily pull away from the Diamond Wildcats to post a 69-41 on Dec. 21 at MCHS.

"Things started coming together tonight and we shot it well," Fields said. "We haven't played against a zone yet this year so it was kind of nice. We hadn't worked in practice a whole lot against a zone, but we moved the ball well and found some good shots tonight. Our transition game was a lot better. I thought we ran the floor pretty well."

After Cooper Reece scored on a put back to open the scoring, Diamond took its only lead of the game on a three pointer by Colby Housh.

But as a sign of things to come, McDonald County's Blake Gravette answered with back-to-back three pointers. After a Diamond free throw, Boston Dowd put the Mustangs up 11-4 with another trey.

McDonald County ended the quarter with a 15-8 lead. Peyton Barton opened the second quarter with another trey followed by Gravette's third and fourth three pointers of the game to give the Mustangs a 26-15 lead late in the second period.

Barton then closed out the Mustangs' 14-2 run with two more threes to help McDonald County take a 34-17 lead at halftime.

McDonald County used an 18-12 advantage to take a 52-29 lead into the fourth quarter.

After giving up 75 points in its loss to Shiloh Christian on Dec. 19, Fields said the team's defense was much better against Diamond.

"I thought our defense in spots was much better tonight," Fields said. "We kind of put a complete game together. We took care of the ball, played better defense and shot the ball well. It is nice to get that monkey off our back. It doesn't get any easier, but we will go into the Neosho tournament with much more confidence."

Gravette finished with 22 points, including six three pointers, to lead the Mustangs while Barton had 14 points. Dowd added nine points followed by Reece with seven, Tim Shields six, Cole DelosSantos four, Cade Smith three, Dylan Allison two and Andrew Landers and Bucky Harrell one each.

Colton Long led Diamond with 14 points.

The Mustang junior varsity made it a sweep with a 49-30 win. McDonald County led 10-4 at the end of the first quarter and 24-16 at halftime before taking a 31-25 lead into the fourth quarter.

Smith led the Mustangs with nine points followed by Koby McAlister and Kirby Townsend seven each, Walker Keith and Colliar Gottfried six each, Saul Garcia five, Ben Mora three and Tae-Shaun Alik, Kevin Matinez and Cale Adamson two each.

McDonald County began play on Dec. 27 in the Neosho Holiday classic against Wet Memphis. The winner advances to the quarterfinals at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 28 while the loser plays in the consolation bracket at 10:30 a.m., also on Dec. 28.

Shiloh Christian

The Shiloh Christian Saints dropped the Mustangs to 0-6 with a 75-64 win on Dec. 19 in Springdale.

Shiloh Christian hit five threes on the way to taking a 22-10 lead at the end of the first quarter. McDonald County closed the gap to 38-28 at intermission, but the Saints opened the third quarter with a 10-5 run to stretch the lead to 48-33 midway through the period.

McDonald County closed to 61-50 at the end of three quarters, but Shiloh Christian used a 14-6 advantage to open the fourth quarter to seal the win.

Reece scored 24 points and Gravette had 19 to lead the Mustangs. Rounding out the scoring for McDonald County were Barton and Cade Smith with six points each, DelosSantos four, Dowd and Shields two each and Harrell one.

Jake Hutchinson led Shiloh Christian with 23 points.

Shiloh Christian overcame a 20-19 deficit to claim a 36-31 decision in the junior varsity game.

Smith and Alik scored nine points each to lead McDonald County followed by Allison with seven, Keith three, McAlister two and Garcia one.