Jim Moore won’t forget Feb. 8 anytime soon, nor will any fan at Aurora High School on Monday night.
Trailing Mount Vernon by two with 27 seconds left, without the ball or leading scorer Emily Parker, things seemed bleak for Aurora.
But the Lady Dawgs completed a miraculous comeback, scoring four points in the game’s final 10 seconds to shock Mount Vernon 51-49, keeping Aurora in the hunt for the Big 8 championship.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Moore. “I’m so proud of them for fight through the ups and downs of the last week and the adversity that we’ve been through. We needed this tonight.”
Junior guard Morgan Montgomery’s steal led to senior Katie Juracek being fouled with 10 seconds on the clock. Despite it being Juracek’s first free throw attempts of the game, she calmly sank both to tie the game up at 49.
On the ensuing play Larissa Pyle-Moore and Kaylee Huffman were able to trap a Mount Vernon player and strip the ball. Pyle-Moore scooped up the loose ball and took it in for a layup to put Aurora up 51-49 with 2.4 seconds remaining.
Mount Vernon did draw a foul with 1.3 on the clock, but after missing the first free throw, the Lady ‘Neers couldn’t come up with the offensive rebound after intentionally missing the second attempt.
It was Juracek again grabbing the rebound and dribbling out the remaining time.
“We were trying to make a play and it happened for us,” said Moore. “When you play as hard as they did tonight good things happen and the ball kind of bounced our way. I’m proud of them for bouncing back and never giving up.”
Mount Vernon came in with wins in eight of its last nine games and took the fight to Aurora early on, grabbing a 16-12 lead behind six first quarter points from freshman guard Cameron Call.
A 13-4 run gave Aurora a 25-22 lead in the second, but Call helped spark a 9-0 run to end the quarter and give the Lady ‘Neers a 31-25 lead going into the half.
“There’s a lot of pressure on her, but she’s accepted that role and she’s accepted that role,” said Mount Vernon coach Dusty Killingsworth. “She has to make a lot of decisions for us because of how much she has the ball in her hands and she has to know when to score and facilitate. She’s a special player.”
Aurora got back into the game thanks to a 14-6 third quarter advantage with Cheyanne Eutsler scoring five of her 14 points in the quarter. The sophomore came in averaging less than two points per game, but has stepped up in the absence of Parker, who will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL.
“We knew she was capable of doing some big things and it was her coming out party tonight,” said Moore. “She’s really going to have to step up and fill more of a scoring role with Emily gone and she did that tonight. She was huge for us.”
Pyle-Moore finished with a game-high 18 points despite seeing a box-and-1 for most of the second half. Eutsler joined her as the only other Lady Dawg in double figures.
Cameron Call finished with a team-high 12 points for Mount Vernon.
Monday is Mount Vernon’s fourth loss by four points or less this season. Making the loss even tougher is the fact the Lady ‘Neers shot just 3-for-10 from the foul line for the game.
While Killingsworth understands that his team has pockets of inexperience at key positions, he believes at this point of the season you can’t blame losses on youth.
Two conference losses basically eliminates Mount Vernon from contention for the Big 8 championship, but Killingsworth is okay with that if his team can take something away from the loss.
“It’s been a recurring theme for us, we’ve got to learn to be tougher in these situations,” said Killingsworth. “We need to learn to raise our level of play and be tougher mentally. It is being able to make free throws, take care of the basketball and blocking out each possession. If this loss defines the rest of our year then this was a failure. But, if this enables us to go into districts with some toughness then we’ll take it and run with it. This was tough, it hurts, but we will see if we can bounce back and make the run that we all want.”
The win keeps Aurora a perfect 5-0 in Big 8 games, and also keeps the Lady Dawgs in a dead heat with Carl Junction atop the conference standings.
With the Lady Bulldogs visiting Aurora on Thursday, Monday’s comeback win after losing Parker is exactly what the team needed to prepare for the stretch run of the season.
“It’s a huge win for their confidence,” said Moore. “They needed to know that we can play and that we’ll be okay. We don’t want to play without Emily, but we’ve had some people step up and fill some roles and that’s what we have to do to have success. Don’t sleep on us, you never know. We know how big Thursday is, we’re going to be ready to play and see what happens.”
Aurora 51, Mount Vernon 49
Mount Vernon 16-15-6-12 – 49
Aurora 12-13-14-12 – 51
Mount Vernon: Call 12, Brown 9, Veith 7, Meeks 5, Hicks 4, Eldridge 4, Wilson 6, McCanless 2.
Aurora: Pyle-Moore 18, Eutsler 14, Huffman 6, Juracek 4, Fisher 4, Montgomery 2, Pratt 2, Vaught 1.
Aurora rolls to win over Mount Vernon on Senior Night
Aurora picked up its seventh win in its last nine games by blasting rival Mount Vernon 75-45 on Senior Night.
While the Dawgs celebrated the role that nine seniors have played in helping Daniel Cutbirth build a program, it was Mount Vernon that came out with fire early, grabbing a 9-2 lead behind a pair of Cale Cornett triples.
He scored 11 of his team-high 14 points in the first quarter with his buzzer-beating layup giving Mount Vernon a 14-13 lead.
However, Aurora started the second quarter with a 29-4 run, part of a 34-7 advantage in the frame to grab control of the game for good.
Austin Carmichael scored a team-high 14 points, leading three Aurora players in double figures. Logan Bader and Skylar Cahill each added 13.
Aurora remains unbeaten in Big 8 play, keeping the Dawgs in a tie with McDonald County and Lamar for the conference lead, two teams they won’t see until the final week of the regular season.
Since losing three straight games during Christmas Break, Aurora has regained form and is looking like a team many thought would be a contender to make a Final Four run, just as they did in football.
Cutbirth is hopeful his team can continue to keep its current run going as his team prepares to compete for conference and district championships.
“The schedule that we’ve had has prepared us for this,” said Cutbirth. “The district that we are in has made us step our game up in the way that we schedule, so we go to the Nixa Tournament and play Bolivar and other teams like that. The conference race isn’t over yet, we’ve still got to go to McDonald County and Lamar and those aren’t easy places to play, but hopefully we can continue to roll and build on that. We are playing pretty well right now.”
Aurora 75, Mount Vernon 45
Mount Vernon 14-7-13-11 – 45
Aurora 13-34-20-8 – 75
Aurora: Carmichael 14, Bader 13, Cahill 13, Fronabarger 9, Husmann 5, Naylor 5, Hilton 5, Miller 3, Montgomery 2, Dunning 2, Meredith 2, Moore 2.
Mount Vernon: Cornell 14, Boswell 11, Fenton 3, Campbell 5, Williams 12.
