By Denise Tucker (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
MARIONVILLE – The top-seeded Miller Lady Cardinals took care of business and claimed their sixth-straight district championship with a 50-40 victory over the Marionville Lady Comets in Class 2 District 12 action Friday night.
“It means a lot,” Miller coach Ryan White said of the district title in his second season as head coach. “I’m from here, I graduated from Marionville, so it just made it even sweeter. But six in a row, it’s a high standard and these girls want to keep that standard. They watched their sisters and cousins growing up and they just want to continue that legacy.”
There was plenty of familiarity in the matchup of Southwest Conference foes, who met just a little more than a week ago, with Miller winning 53-46 in the final game of the regular season. One key for the Lady Cardinals was to try and limit Marionville’s all-state player and lone senior, Lucy Newberry.
“She’s a great player, she’s an all-state player,” White said of Newberry. “We know that, we recognize that, we respect that. So, our goal was, you guard (number) 20 and you’re going to have a chance to win, and they did that.”
The Lady Cardinals, who improved to 20-8 overall, limited Newberry to just two first-half points, although she did pull down nine rebounds (unofficially). They were able to limit her touches and force other players to step up for the second-seeded Lady Comets.
Freshman Lanie Stokes scored five points in the first quarter and added 10 more in the second, including a runner at the halftime buzzer to pull the Lady Comets with six points (28-22) going into the locker room.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
The spark for Miller in the first half was the Ashlynn Helton-to-Alexis Bailey connection. Five times, Helton found Bailey, whether it was on the baseline or on the wing, and five times, Bailey knocked down 3-pointers for 15 first-half points.
“We just kind of go with the flow,” Bailey said. “Whatever happens, happens. If I’m not on that night, then it’s going to someone else and we all kind of understand that.”
Both teams came out cold to start the third quarter with the first bucket coming about three minutes in on a basket by Newberry to pull Marionville within four points (28-24). But foul trouble for the Lady Comets and a Miller 13-3 run helped widen the gap for a 41-27 lead going into the fourth quarter.
“I thought we were pretty well prepared for anything they could throw at us,” Marionville coach Casey Young-Newberry said. “We’re about six deep right now. The girls I brought off the bench – I start two freshmen – when Dally (Pomeroy) got in foul trouble, were both freshmen. When you get in that kind of foul trouble, and not being any deeper than we are, it’s hard to come back from.”
But the Lady Comets opened the fourth quarter on two Newberry free throws, and neither team scored until Newberry went coast-to-coast for a basket to pull within 10 (41-31) with about six minutes to go. Four more free throws from Newberry, and one from Maggie Murphy, got Marionville within seven points with 3:21 remaining, but that’s as close as the Lady Comets (20-8) would get.
“Our girls had the opportunity to lay down, a lot of opportunities to quit, and they didn’t,” Young-Newberry said. “That says a lot about the future of our program. We had a 20-win season, and the Lady Comets haven’t had a 20-win season since before 2015 when Josey (Young) was here. I feel that their will to win and their lack of wanting to give up speaks so much to our future. Lucy started in seventh grade and is the only left of her group. She has set a high bar for these girls and I’m anxious to see what our future holds.”
Bringing home the program’s sixth-straight district title not only is important for the team, but is also a sense of pride for the Miller community.
“The standard is winning,” Bailey said. “We always put all of our effort in, especially, when we know it counts. We put our hearts out there and knew what we had to do to win.”
The Lady Cardinals will take on Crane, which upset top-seeded Blue Eye 47-39 in the Class 2 District 11 final, as the No. 2 seed.
“We saw Crane earlier this year,” White said of Miller’s 55-53 win on Dec. 14, 2023. “They battled with us, so we don’t expect anything less than a nailbiter, and we’re just going to prepare for it.”
(1) MILLER 50, (2) MARIONVILLE 40
Class 2 District 12 Tournament
Championship game
MARIONVILLE 10-12-5-13—40
MILLER 14-14-13-9—50
MARIONVILLE (20-7) – Annaliyah Ghan 2, Dally Pomeroy 2, Lanie Stokes 15, Maggie Murphy 2, Lucy Newberry 16, Anna Bright 3.
MILLER (20-8) – Rachel Nunez 7, Alexis Bailey 18, Ashlynn Helton 4, Kendall Neely 4, Loghann Leivan 13, Kaylee Thom 4.
Up next: Miller vs. Crane, Monday, Feb. 26
