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Basketball shootouts are great events where local fans can see talent from other schools and watch as their own teams are showcased usually in tightly competitive games against opponents similar to themselves. That never materialized in the contest between the MCS Lady Panthers and the Dupo Lady Tigers. MCS is a good team striving to be better, while Dupo is a struggling program working to be good. What looked like a good match up quickly turned ugly as the MCS 8th Grade Lady Panthers defeated the Lady Tigers of Dupo 51-15 in the MCS Shootout held Saturday in the MCS Gymnasium.
The Lady Panthers pounced on the Lady Tigers using a full court press to force turnovers and create offensive opportunities for themselves and it worked. The Lady Tigers who were without their best two players and ball handlers in the first quarter buckled under the pressure and fell behind quickly as MCS held a 17-1 lead at the end of the first quarter. The second quarter was more of the same as MCS extended their lead to 33-7 by halftime. MCS Coach Ed Emge began to work in his bench a little more in the second half but the scoring continued for the Lady Panthers as they made their way to a 48-13 by the end of the third quarter and then ended the game winning 51-15. After the game Coach Emge said, “Our press was really good tonight, we got some steals and got some points off of the turnovers. We need to do a better job of setting up our offense, but Dupo pressed us pretty much the whole game and that didn’t give us many opportunities to do that. But overall I was pretty happy.”
The Lady Panthers’ Sara Wessell led all scorers in the game with 15 points. Coach Emge said of Wessell, “I’ve been waiting for her to turn it up. She scored like this all last year as a seventh grader. She’s been struggling so far this season but she had a great game. She scored our first ten points tonight, just had a great game.” The teams remaining 36 points were scattered among a number of Lady Panther players, although Gabby Papachristianon scored 8 points on the night. “Gabby had a great game, she’s been playing well as of late and Laurel Mueth as well.”
As for the Lady Tigers, while they were down by a large margin the team showed no signs of quit. The Lady Tigers did create some turnovers and opportunities for themselves but failed to convert them into points. The Lady Tigers also got into foul trouble and the Lady Panthers shot well at the free throw line. Dupo Lady Tigers Coach Jason Waller said, “We couldn’t adjust to their full court pressure and stop the turnovers. We hustled more after the first quarter though.” In addition Dupo had not seen an atmosphere like that of an MCS basketball game. “I think our girls got caught up in the hype of the shootout, we have to play our game and not let everything else that’s going on bother us. I coach my team to hustle the entire game regardless of the score, to try and win each quarter and each minute. If we continue to do that through entire games, good things are going to happen.”
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