Tuesday’s non-conference game at Stockton was about as evenly matched as one could possibly design. Both the homestanding Lady Tigers and the Bolivar Liberators started four seniors and a sophomore and the height differences were negligible.
The first ten minutes or so featured plenty of back-and-forth with nine lead changes and three ties. Midway through the second quarter, Stockton went on an 8-0 run to open up a 24-17 advantage, and the Lady Tigers would not look back again as they prevailed 48-42.
Twenty-four hours removed from a somewhat ugly 51-46 win at Lamar, Stockton played much better back on the home floor. Bolivar did a good job of denying open looks for Stockton’s top scorer, senior Taylor Greenlee, but that opened the way for fellow seniors Sarah Spurgeon and Mati Burns, who scored 15 and 12 points respectively, as well as for some role players like sophomore Harlly Gray and junior Kayla Hobbs.
Coach Kevin Burns had high praise for his daughter in one of her best efforts of the year.
“I told [Mati] at halftime, I said, 'Finally you’ve started stepping up.' She’s getting more confidence in her drive, so yeah, she has stepped up and I’m proud of her for that.”
The Lady Tigers led 27-22 at the half and pushed the lead up to 13 in the second half with good ball control and timely shot selection, not to mention a fair amount of hustle for second chance opportunities.
The biggest stat of the night was most likely turnovers. Stockton coughed up the ball just four times unofficially compared to Bolivar’s 14.
“I thought we played well together as a team tonight,” Coach Burns said. “They played within themselves and didn’t try to force too much and they let the game come to them. I’m really proud of them tonight; they didn’t have a real bad quarter. We’ve had these quarters [recently] where we’ve given up a lot of points. Bolivar didn’t have their best night, so hopefully we had something to do with that.”
Liberators coach Darin Archer concurred: “Going in tonight we felt we had to control Spurgeon and Greenlee. We knew that [Taylor] Ewing and Burns and some of the others would be able to knock down some threes, but more importantly we wanted to be able to control them inside. I felt Burns in the first half did a good job of attacking the basket and making some things happen and to her credit, she got other teammates involved and allowed them some easy shots.
Senior Meleah Francka paced the Bolivar scoring with 13 points while classmate Aleena Derossett added 10. Both canned a trio of treys.
Stockton improved to 9-4 on the season while Bolivar fell to 6-6. Both teams host tournaments next week.
Bolivar 11 11 5 15—42
Stockton 12 15 9 12—48
Bolivar: Meleah Francka 13, Aleena Derossett 10, Kaylie Rothdiener 10, Michelle Gabani 5, Reaghan Lesh 2, Macy Hall 2.
Stockton: Sarah Spurgeon 15, Mati Burns 12, Taylor Greenlee 9, Harlly Gray 5, Kayla Hobbs 3, Taylor Ewing 3, Hannah Ewing 1.
