By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
JOPLIN – Monday was a night of milestones for the College Heights girls basketball team.
With a 74-37 victory against Golden City, the Cougars earned a program-record 22nd win and completed an unbeaten run through the Ozark 7 Conference for the school’s first conference championship since joining the league two years ago.
“That was fun for us to do on our home floor tonight,” College Heights coach John Blankenship said. “We prepared for this moment. We watched a lot of game tape on Golden City, they’re a good team. Our defense just picked up big time in the second half. We were up by 16 at the half and about 40 at the end of the third quarter so tonight was a big motivation for us trying to win a conference championship.”
Golden City, 16-8 (2-3), was just the latest victim for the Cougars, who improved to 22-2 overall. College Heights won by an average of 37.5 points in six wins against Ozark 7 opponents.
For most of Monday’s first half, though, it looked like the Eagles might be the toughest conference foe.
College Heights led by 10 points in the first quarter but with 4:09 left in the half it was just a 23-20 game after Golden City freshman Kyndall Scott scored. Another Scott basket at the 2:57 mark kept the Eagles within five points at 27-22.
After that it was all Cougars.
Senior Emmy Colin made a trio of three pointers in a span of a minute and a half and College Heights finished the half on an 11-0 run to lead 38-22.
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Colin had scored just two points in the first quarter but exploded for 15 in the second.
“She’s very unselfish,” Blankenship said. “She looks to get her teammates involved early. It got to a point where she decided she needed to take over and she certainly did that. She’s capable of doing that on any given night. One of the things I really appreciate about Emmy is just how disciplined she is in the process. She’s such a team player, tries to get her teammates involved. She’s in the gym every morning at six o’clock working on her shooting. She’s paid the prices to get where she is in her career. She’s just an incredible player.”
Things got worse for the Eagles after halftime. After committing nine turnovers in the first half they turned it over eight times in the third quarter alone as College Heights used frequent full court pressure to great effect.
That 11-0 Cougars run to finish the first half ballooned into a 41-4 run and with 6:06 left in the game College Heights led 68-26.
“Our defense was arguably the best we’ve played this year until they hit some three’s and that kind of opened things up and once they started making three’s they got the confidence and it snowballed from there,” Golden City coach Derek Judd said.
“Once (Colin) got rolling everyone else got rolling with her. It’s hard to come back from that.”
Colin scored a game-high 30 points and College Heights senior Makenna Lewis added 10. Freshman Klohe Burk scored nine.
Golden City was led by Scott’s 16 points. Sophomore Brooke Beerly finished with nine.
The Cougars will wrap up their regular season with a road game at Sarcoxie on Thursday before opening up district play next Monday as the top seed in Class 2 District 12. They’ll face the winner of No. 8 Thomas Jefferson and No. 9 Diamond. Golden City is seeded second.
“We’re building momentum,” Blankenship said. “A big win against the number two seed in districts gives us some encouragement and some confidence we can play with anybody in the district. If we play well we’ll have a good shot.”
