Top-seeded Nevada used a 12-2 spurt to end the third quarter and start the fourth to build a 42-30 lead, but then had to hold on down the stretch to claim a 51-47 win over the McDonald County Lady Mustangs on Monday night in the opening round of the Freeman Sports Medicine CJ Classic Girls Basketball Tournament at Carl Junction High School.
"I am really pleased with our first game effort," said coach Blake Short. "We scored the ball better than we scored probably all but two or three games last year. The girls played extremely hard. I couldn't say any girl did not play as hard as she could at all times. That's one thing we ask because you don't have to be good at something to play hard."
McDonald County's Rita Santillan started the Lady Mustangs' fourth-quarter comeback with a three-pointer with six minutes left in the game. Nevada's Calli Beshore followed with a pair of free throws to give the Lady Tigers a 44-33 lead.
McDonald County answered with six consecutive points. Megan Mills hit a short jumper before Sam Frazier hit a trey and Ragan Wilson made one of two free throws to cut the lead to 44-39 with a minute and a half left.
Nevada's Hailee Lundine sank two more charities for Nevada, but Mills hit McDonald County's third three-pointer of the quarter to get the Lady Mustangs to within four at 46-42.
Teagan Charles hit two more free throws to give Nevada a 48-42 lead.
McDonald County freshman Kristin Penn then cut the lead to 48-44 with a left-handed runner in the lane before Charles pushed the lead back to six with a layup.
Santillan made it a one-possession game when she hit another three-pointer for the Lady Mustangs with 30 seconds remaining, but Lundine clinched the Nevada win with a free throw with 10 seconds left.
"Offensively, I thought we looked really good," Short said. "I thought we had some silly turnovers that were unforced that kind of killed us, but we shot the ball pretty decent. If we make some easy layups -- we shot the ball better from the outside -- it's a different game. We played a couple of freshmen that gave us some good minutes in their first high school action against a good Nevada team. I thought we did some really good things and we fought until the end. It was a great first game and it kind of tells us where we are at."
Frazier finished with 15 points and Santillan 12 to lead McDonald County. Wilson added eight points, while Penn had six, Mills five and Caitlyn Barton one to round out the scoring for the Lady Mustangs.
Charles scored 16 points for Nevada to lead all scorers.
McDonald County played Jasper in the consolation semifinals on Nov. 28. The winner of that game plays at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 30 for fifth place while the loser plays at 4 p.m. for seventh place.
Sports on 11/30/2017