Cassville opens districts by beating Monett

Emily sandwich Democrat Photo/Jared Lankford Emily Speakman works for an open shot between two Monett players during Monday night's district opener at Carl Junction. The Lady Wildcats beat the Lady Cubs 35-23 to advance to the semi-finals on Wednesday. [Order this photo]

The battle marked the fourth time the Big 8 Conference foes had tangled this season. The Lady Wildcats had won the previous three meetings by an average of 19 points.

"I told our girls in the locker room that I had never faced the same team four times in a season," said Cassville coach Chris Shore. "When the same teams play each other three and four times, the games tend to get tighter because they are so familiar with each other. I knew it was

going to be an ugly game. I didn't think it would be this ugly."

Cassville improved to 13-12 on the season and advance to play Carl Junction on Wednesday night. The two teams met on Jan. 30 with the Lady Bulldogs prevailing 57-44.

On Monday night, it was apparent after the first eight minutes of play between Cassville and Monett that it was going to be a battle as the Lady Wildcats held a slim 7-6 advantage at the end of the first period and led 15-8 at halftime.

Cassville's Emily Speakman battled foul trouble in the first half, which allowed Monett's two-three zone defense to restrict quality looks at the basket for the Lady Wildcats.

Another result of the two-three defense were turnovers, and lots of them.

Both teams scored a combined 23 points in the first half and commited 29 turnovers.

Monett picked up the pace in the third period and outperformed Cassville 10 to 7 to trail 22-18 at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

The Lady Cubs trimmed the advantage to four points at 24-20 on a pair of Hunter Glouse free throws with 6:54 remaining and had three consecutive possessions to cut into the lead but came up empty.

A pair of free throws from Jaime Everett with 4:25 left in the game ignited an 8-0 run for Cassville that put the game out of reach.

"You have to tip your hat to Monett," said Shore. "They played very hard tonight."

Scoring for Cassville were: Everett, 12; Kennadi Howard, 8; Speakman, 7; Katelyn Pitts and Raeghan Blisard, 3 each; and Cari Vollenweider, 2.

Scoring for Monett were: Glouse, 10; Faith Schmidt, 5; Jessica Schmidt and Brooke Madison, 3 each; and Abby Krueger, 2.