By Michael Cignoli (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
FAIR GROVE – West Plains graduated the player who had the biggest role on the team that won the state title earlier this year, but the returning players are still playing like champions.
Allyssa Joyner and Olivia Lawson scored 22 points apiece, leading the Zizzers to a 56-46 victory over the hosts in the 42nd Annual Fair Grove Girls’ Invitational Basketball Tournament title game on Friday.
The defending Class 5 champions improved to 4-0 in their first season without Mizzou signee Ashton Judd, who was named state player of the year after a record-setting senior campaign.
But the rest of last year’s key contributors have all returned and picked up right where they left off, securing back-to-back statement victories over Ava in the tournament semifinals and Fair Grove in the championship game.
“I think a lot of people wrote us off, saying ‘Oh, we lost this player’ – but she was the only senior on the team,” West Plains coach Scott Womack said. “These girls are fighters and they have played with a lot of confidence. They’ve played big games. That’s what I wanted to see tonight.”
It took some time for the Zizzers to get going, but Joyner and Lawson ignited the spark in the second quarter. The juniors combined to score all 19 of the team’s points that frame as West Plains turned a 10-6 first-quarter deficit into a 25-20 halftime advantage.
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Lawson had 12 during the quarter, including a bucket that tied the score at 16 with just over four minutes to play. Joyner followed with a 3-pointer – her first of four on the evening – that gave the Zizzers their first lead of the night.
“You could tell in the first quarter we were very timid,” Womack said. “I thought once we saw what we needed to do, we came together. I kind of saw this summer that they could do that. They kind of started to find their roles. Allyssa’s been so aggressive and she’s scoring at all three levels for us. And then Olivia really came out tonight and played really well for us. I felt like this was a defining moment for her.”
It was also a defining moment for the Zizzers, as their new-look offense proved successful.
“I feel like we had to prove that we could come together and work as a team – more so than having one person that can really take the ball to the hole,” Lawson said. “We all have to work on passing and cutting and things that are more team-built.”
Judd was a lightning rod who often drew the opposing team’s best defender – sometimes plural – and still managed to average a team-high 26 points per game.
This year, West Plains has shifted to a scoring-by-committee approach – meaning there’s no obvious choice for opposing coaches to key in on.
“It didn’t show tonight because we were kind of a two-horse team in terms of the scoring, but we have four girls averaging in double-figures right now,” Womack said. “They did other things tonight. I was really proud of our defense. I think we took four charges and I thought we did well on the boards. We have a lot of girls that are capable of scoring. On any given night, it can be their turn.”
Fair Grove countered with its own balanced scoring attack, as Kameron Green (17 points), Ashton Bell (13) and Brooke Daniels (11) all finished in double-figures.
Daniels hit a buzzer-beater at the end of the third quarter that gave the Eagles a 35-34 advantage heading into the final frame, but Joyner countered with her own trey to put West Plains back on top.
Green responded to tie the score at 37 with six minutes left in regulation, but the Zizzers went on a 12-4 run – almost exclusively from the free-throw line – to create some distance over the next four minutes.
The Eagles cut the deficit to six, but got no closer and fell to 2-1 on the young season.
Joyner and Lawson combined to make 5-of-6 free throws in the final minute to seal the victory.
“They’re a big mismatch because they can score from anywhere on the floor – as long as they stay aggressive and stay within themselves,” Womack said. “I thought they were just rushing themselves in the first half. That’s what we talked about at halftime – just settling down, taking the good shot and not letting them dictate how fast we were playing. Let’s play at our speed that we want to play at.”
In that regard, the Zizzers are much like the defensive-minded teams from previous seasons.
The Zizzers have allowed fewer than 36.2 points per game in each of the past three years, which also included a 2021 state runner-up finish and a 2020 district championship.
Fair Grove’s aggressiveness and physicality resulted in one of the highest point totals the Zizzers have allowed in recent memory. In 31 games last season, only seven teams scored more points against West Plains than the 46 the Eagles scored on Friday.
“We did a good job defensively,” Womack said. “Fouled a little bit too much, but their aggressive play put us in that situation. They’re just a very confident group that is going to fight until the end.”
WEST PLAINS (4-0) 6 19 9 22 — 56
FAIR GROVE (2-1) 10 10 15 11 — 46
