By Brian Hall/For OzarksSportsZone.com
To quote Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”
That’s also the way Cassville’s head coach, Chris Shore, described the Big 8 Conference game at Aurora Monday night.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Shore said. “We kind of had our way with then the first half and they had their way with us the second.”
Cassville was able to notch their 14th win of the season by holding off the Lady Houn’s late rally, 61-53.
The Lady Wildcats took control early opening up an 11-2 lead. Cassville patiently ran their offense looking to feed Madi Stokes in the low post.
Aurora tried to defend the much taller Stokes with a double team that often led to other Lady ‘Cats finding an open shot. Other times, they still fed Stokes while lofting passes only she could reach.
Kandace Wallace was one of the Cassville players who benefited from Aurora’s defensive strategy. “A lot of people focus on Madi whenever she’s in the post so they don’t notice someone else who’s wide open,” said Wallace.
Wallace had several open looks and helped feed Stokes down low with three early assists.
The 6-3 Stokes creates a difficult matchup for opponents. Stokes echoed Wallace.
“Even when Madi isn’t scoring she draws so much attention that it opens up other things for other people,” he said.
The problem for Aurora was that Stokes was scoring, along with many of her teammates. Stokes had 14 of her team-high 18 points in the first half. And as a team, Cassville made 68 percent of its first-half shots.
Cassville (14-8; 3-2) had a 13-point lead by the end of the first period that grew to 14 points by halftime.
Aurora had to make a change if they were going to get back into the game and the Lady Houn’s coach, Trish Marsh, knew what had to be done.
“The second half I felt like we had to get out and get pressure and get them out of their offensive continuity,” said Marsh.
The Lady Houn’ Dawgs started chipping away at the Cassville lead. Aurora unleashed full-court pressure and scoring started to come in bunches from Juniors Kaylee Huffman and Emily Moore.
Down 16 points with two minutes left in the third quarter, Huffman sank a three-point basket, was fouled, and converted the free throw.
A few seconds later, Moore turned in a basket plus a free throw to cut the lead to single digits, 43-34.
Marsh complimented her guards. “They do a lot for our team on both ends of the floor,” said Marsh. “I need to continue to have those two step up with their game, but I need to get more people involved.”
Huffman and Moore scored 25 and 24 points, respectively. They accounted for a little better than 92 percent of the scoring for Aurora.
Aurora (7-15; 3-3) kept up the pressure in the fourth quarter forcing six Cassville turnovers in the fourth quarter.
They had narrowed the gap to six points with three minutes left to play and started fouling the Lady Wildcats sending them to the line for 1-and-1 opportunities.
Cassville went 10-for-10 from the stripe in the last two minutes of the game to finish out the victory, 61-53.
“I was really proud of the girls tonight,” said Marsh. “They could have rolled over but they didn’t.”
Aurora has a make-up game scheduled at Carl Junction February 14 and Cassville will be at Seneca on Thursday.
Aurora: 7 – 8 – 15 – 19 —53
Cassville: 20 – 13 – 12 – 16 — 61
Aurora: Huffman, 25; Moore, 24; Paulsen, 2; Vaught, 2
Cassville: Brooks, 8; Howe, 7; Long, 13; Mccrackin, 4; Stokes, 18; Wallace, 12
