By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Mt. Vernon senior Lacy Stokes was just about to answer a question when teammate Ellie Johnston interrupted with some good news.
“We just got our hundredth win,” said Johnston.
Sure enough, Saturday’s 84-23 throttling of Seneca in the Class 4 District 12 championship was a milestone win for the Mountaineers seniors, who improved to 100-18 in their high school careers and 25-3 this season.
“I’ve played with her since I was little so knowing we did this together – everybody’s been talking to us since we were little, you guys are going to do it in high school, you guys are going to do it in high school. We did it,” Stokes said. “We’re doing what we wanted to so now we just want to finish out with a state championship hopefully.”
“I’ve got to be a part of 70 of those I think,” Mt. Vernon head coach Grant Berendt said. “Any time you have two kids that bring that kind of experience to your ball team on both ends, not just an offensive player or defensive player – they play both ways and they can just keep going. They’re special kids.”
The senior duo combined for 41 points on Saturday and helped put the game out of reach in the first half. It was Mt. Vernon’s third win against the Indians (13-15) this season, and just like the first two the Mountaineers got off to a blistering start.
Mt. Vernon led 24-6 after a quarter and held Seneca scoreless in the second while building a 52-6 halftime lead. The Indians went more than 12 minutes without scoring until sophomore Parker Long ended the drought with 4:43 left in the third. Her basket made it 61-8. By then Mt. Vernon had scored 42 straight.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
The Mountaineers benefited from at least 18 Seneca turnovers in the first half, at least 10 of which were steals. Stokes had six of them and had 21 points by halftime.
“Coach B says make sure they remember you and we like to start games off making sure teams remember us,” Stokes said. “We don’t want to give anyone hope in the beginning because any team that has hope sometimes can pull it off in the end so we try to get rid of all that and make sure they know we’re on top in the beginning.”
“Our goal is to come out and really set the tone on the defensive end,” Berendt said. “I thought that we got a few things early offensively that helped us get going and then we put the clamps down.”
“In order for us to do it, it takes everyone that plays and we played all eight kids tonight and all eight kids had a huge impact and I think they all scored,” he said. “It was a great job by them.”
All eight scored in the first half, too.
Stokes finished with 30 points, sophomore Allie Schubert scored 13 and Johnston added 11. The other scorers were junior Cameryn Cassity (9), junior Jolie Prescott (7), sophomore Kadence Krempges (6), junior Raegan Boswell (5) and senior Lisa Kruger (3).
Seneca scored more than half of its points in the fourth quarter with Long chipping in four and junior Aliya Grotjohn, freshman Makenzie French and senior Makayla French each scoring three. Grotjohn finished with 10.
While Mt. Vernon has won five-straight district titles, the team will be looking for its first sectional win in that stretch when it travels to Ava on March 10. Strafford ended the Mountaineers’ season the last four years in the Class 3 sectional round.
Stokes said after a talented senior class graduated her sophomore year, people in Mt. Vernon wondered what the team would have coming back other than a couple sophomores and freshmen.
“We didn’t really know and then we had a big win over Clever last year and we thought we wanted to carry that over this year and we knew we were going to be even better this year with all the experience,” she said. “We’ve been in this game four times, me and my best friend Ellie. I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without her. So we took it on our shoulders and we carried them together and we’re going to hopefully carry them all the way.”
Ava, 21-5, advanced despite being seeded fourth in its district. It upset top seed Hollister in the semifinals and third seed Forsyth in the championship.
“They have some big wins under their belt,” Berendt said. “A big win over a Hollister team that was state ranked and ranked one in their district. They’ve got some size. They start four sophomores and a junior. Very young but very athletic and they’re playing well right now.”
