By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
WEBB CITY, Mo. – Sitting in the locker room at halftime with a five-point lead, Brad Shorter asked his team how they could increase it.
The Carl Junction girls had limited Webb City to just nine points in the first half, but a player said the Bulldogs needed to play better defense.
They did just that, holding Webb City scoreless in the fourth quarter as the Bulldogs won 42-14 Friday night in the Class 4 District 12 championship, giving Carl Junction its fourth-straight district title.
“We went in and I think they had nine points,” Shorter said. “Most people would say that’s pretty good defense. It was a possession game. It was slow, it was methodical. And she was right. We could play a little bit better defensively. I thought our kids did that.”
Points were at a premium as both teams played zone defenses all night. It took four minutes to score the first points of the game, and Webb City led 5-3 at the end of the first quarter.
By halftime it was a five-point game, 14-9, with the Bulldogs scoring exactly half of their points at the free throw line.
“Webb had a great game plan coming in, Coach Robbins did,” Shorter said. “They executed it well. Just more than anything to try to frustrate us I felt like. Katie (Scott) didn’t get a lot of great looks early but she did get some looks. We got a lead, went into halftime with a decent lead and in a game like that five points feels like 20 points because scoring was at a minimum.”
Carl Junction opened the second half with a single possession lasting one minute and forty-nine seconds. The Bulldogs took three shot attempts and didn’t score.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
“I told the girls multiple times at practice, if we’re up one point and we have to hold it we’ll hold it,” Shorter said. “It’s one of those things if they’re going to play that game of trying to do this defensively against one kid and put two on her or hold her and things like that then I guess we can play our game by holding the ball and hey come get us. I thought they did a really good job of that, just being patient.”
Webb City continued to hang around. When senior Elizabeth Hayes converted a three-point play with 2:53 left in the quarter, the Cardinals were within four points at 18-14.
The Bulldogs still only led by single digits at the end of the third, and that was after junior Danielle Wrensch hit a three pointer with two seconds remaining.
Carl Junction turned it into a blowout in the fourth, though.
As it turned out, Hayes’ three-point play was the final time the Cardinals would score. Webb City finished the game without scoring in the final 10 minutes, 53 seconds. It missed three free throws in the fourth quarter.
Wrensch made another three pointer to give the Bulldogs a double-digit lead. Scott scored, and junior Taylor Hughes scored and was fouled, making it 31-14 after the free throw.
Junior Shila Winder’s three-point play with 3:42 remaining made it a 20-point game. The Bulldogs finished the game making eight-straight free throws.
“Early our game plan was to try to keep the ball out of Katie’s hands,” Webb City coach Lance Robbins said. “We were able to do that. They were disciplined enough and patient enough to keep working the ball around.”
Robbins said a lack of defensive rebounds proved costly early in the game, and Carl Junction’s zone didn’t help.
“We were getting stops but we weren’t getting rebounds,” he said. “Those killed us. We didn’t do a good job of attacking their zone. You’ve got to give credit to them. They’re a very good basketball team and they’re well-coached. That zone is hard to attack. Everybody who plays them struggles with it because they’re so long and athletic. We just didn’t do a good job of getting inside and attacking.”
Junior Shila Winder and Scott each scored 13 points for the Bulldogs. Winder was 9-for-9 at the line.
Webb City was led by Hayes, who scored 10 points.
The win marked the second year in a row that Carl Junction beat Webb City in the district finals. Last year the Bulldogs lost in the state championship game. They played in the semifinals in 2017, and the quarterfinals in 2016.
Now 18-9, Carl Junction will play at 7:45 p.m. Tuesday at Nixa against the District 11 champion.
Webb City finishes the year 12-14.
