Lady Mustangs Rebound To Win Consolation

RICK PECK/SPECIAL TO MCDONALD COUNTY PRESS McDonald County's Ragan Wilson gets fouled by Rogers' Sammy Zemlicka during the Lady Mustangs' 47-34 loss on Dec. 12 in the opening round of the 23rd Annual Freeman Lady Eagle Classic at Joplin High School.
RICK PECK/SPECIAL TO MCDONALD COUNTY PRESS McDonald County's Ragan Wilson gets fouled by Rogers' Sammy Zemlicka during the Lady Mustangs' 47-34 loss on Dec. 12 in the opening round of the 23rd Annual Freeman Lady Eagle Classic at Joplin High School.

The McDonald County High School girls' basketball team rebounded from an opening-round loss with a pair of wins to take consolation honors at last week's 23rd Annual Freeman Lady Eagle Classic at Joplin High School.

In the consolation finals, McDonald County trailed 17-15 late in the second period before scoring the final six points of the first half to propel the Lady Mustangs to a 40-26 win over East Newton.

"Our second-half defense and rebounding was so much better than it had been in our previous five games,'" said coach Chris Kennedy. "Earlier this year we stayed in our diamond zone press and didn't go man-to-man when we should have. We learned from that and we went more man-to-man today and kind of wore them down. Three games in three days are tough on anybody, but when you're down it makes it harder to come back."

East Newton scored the first basket of the second half to cut the McDonald County lead to 21-19, but the Lady Mustangs answered with an 11-0 run to stretch the lead to 32-19 late in the third quarter.

Leading 33-21 to start the final period, McDonald County used a 5-2 run to start the quarter to seal the win.

Laney Wilson scored nine points to lead a balanced McDonald County scoring attack. Kristen Penn added seven points, followed by Rita Santillan with six points, Sydney Killion with five, Ragan Wilson four and Alexia Estrada three.

Leavenworth

McDonald County began its consolation bracket run with a 47-45 win over the Leavenworth Lady Pioneers.

The game was as close as the final score indicated. Leavenworth led 12-10 after the first quarter before McDonald County tied the game at 22-22 at halftime. McDonald County took a 35-33 lead after three periods before each team scored 12 points in the final period.

Ragan Wilson scored 13 points and Penn added 11 to lead McDonald County. Rounding out the scoring for McDonald County were Killion, Santillan and Caitlyn Barton with five points each and Laney Wilson and Sanny with four each.

Rogers

Rogers used an 18-2 advantage in the second quarter to erase a 12-8 McDonald County first-quarter lead for a 26-14 halftime lead on the way to a 47-34 win in the tournament's opening round.

"Rogers is a good team and we played well in three quarters of the game," Kennedy said. "We had one bad quarter and that was the difference in the game."

McDonald County was led by Santillan with 12 points. Rounding out the scoring for the Lady Mustangs were Penn with seven points, Killion five, Ragan Wilson four and Barton, Sanny and Laney Wilson two each.

McDonald County improves to 3-3 heading into its Dec. 17 game at Webb City. The Lady Mustangs host Carthage on Dec. 19.

Sports on 12/19/2019