Mexico senior Logan Blevins (32) watches sophomore Mya Miller (23) prepare to release a 10-foot jumper over the outstretched arms of Moberly senior Aleesia Oliver during Friday's home game. Miller scored 12 points to lead the Lady Bulldogs to a tough 31-27 victory.

There's nothing like an upperclassman on her school's senior night taking over the reins of a halftime pep talk from her coach, pleading and wanting to inspire her teammates to step up their game at a time when things are looking bleak.

That's what Rachel Kristofferson, a 5-foot-8 senior guard, did Friday in the Mexico varsity girls locker room at the midpoint of their final regular-season home game. The meeting against North Central Missouri Conference rival Moberly became a defensive dogfight, and the Lady Bulldogs were on the wrong end of a 16-6 score at the break.

“My message was telling my teammates how much we needed to go out and play how we've been playing these past two weeks. I think all of us seniors were a bit nervous simply because it was senior night for us and we especially wanted to win this one, but we need to get past the idea of knowing this is senior night and treat this like it was any normal game that's been played and just get down to it,” Kristofferson said.

“I told the team we needed to buckle down some more. I thought most of our first-half problems was a lack of team communication on the floor. I noticed a big difference with our communication in the second half, and I noticed we had more energy coming from the bench that really helped push us through to get this win.”

When play resumed, the Lady Bulldogs executed a press that forced Moberly into turning the ball over, and this fed an 8-0 Mexico run to open the third quarter . Sophomore Mya Miller accounted for six of those points, and with 2:30 left Miller grabbed the ball away from Moberly senior Ma'Kayla Payne and took it to the rim to deliver Mexico its first lead of the night at 19-18.

From here, Mexico, fought through the defensive battle and came out on top to celebrate a 31-27 victory against the Spartans.

“This was a game that was played well defensively by both teams. Both of us missed some easy baskets and open looks but credit the opposing defenses for making shots tough,” Mexico coach Ed Costley said.

“We opened the second half making a defensive change that really helped us. We moved Mya from the top of our 1-2-2 press to the bottom of it. We noticed Moberly would use the skip pass to get out of it before against us, but Mya's speed allowed her to get some steals off those long skip passes on the back side. She was able to take the ball and score off those steals. She got us off to a great start in the second half scoring four times off of that press.”

The victory was the Lady Bulldogs’ (16-5, 7-1 NCMC) third against Moberly (10-12, 3-5) this season, and it extended Mexico’s winning streak to seven games.

The Lady Bulldogs are in the driver's seat to win the NCMC championship as they close out the regular season this week. Mexico was to compete Tuesday night at Hannibal, and come Thursday it will make a short trip to Fulton.

Miller and senior Reghan Smith paced the Lady Bulldogs scoring 12 and 10 points, respectively, and senior Logan Blevins finished with four.

Meanwhile, seniors Kaylee Jones and Taylor Sherrow chipped in two points apiece and sophomore Riley Thurman made a free throw. Mexico's other senior players are Asha Hamilton and Shelbi Shaw.

Mexico made 9 of 25 shots from the field in the game, went 1-for-10 from behind the arc and the Lady Bulldogs made 8 of 18 free throws.

Moberly was held to 3 of 22 shooting from beyond the arc and made 7 of 20 field goals. At the stripe, the Lady Spartans made 4 of 9 free throws.

The Lady Spartans opened the game strong, scoring 12 unanswered points with the aid of 3-pointers put down by Payne and Kennedy Messer. Smith netted a runner to finally put Mexico on the scoreboard with 4:05 remaining in the second quarter.

Scoring in the first half ended with 30 seconds remaining when Messer was at the top of the key and fed the ball to Aleesia Oliver at the right block, where the senior scored off the glass for the 16-6 halftime score.

“I thought we guarded well for four quarters and our girls played hard and just defended really well,” Lady Spartans coach Tony Vestal said. “I thought a lot of Mexico's buckets in the third quarter were from our turnovers that resulted in layups for them and that became a big difference in the outcome. Mexico came out using a 1-2-2 on us with a half-court trap that gave us problems, and our skip passes were taken away. Offensively, we could not get the ball inside like we wanted in the second half.”

Moberly trailed 20-18 when the third segment ended and was down by five in the fourth when Lady Spartans senior Lauren Koenig gave her team a lift by nailing an open 3-pointer and scoring a putback within 30 seconds of one another. Koenig's 3 from near the Moberly bench tied the score at 25 with 2:28 remaining.

Moberly could not regain control, however, and misfired on four 3-point attempts in the final 40 seconds leading up to the final outcome.

Costley said Smith was another instrumental speaker in the team's locker room, and he credited both Smith and Kristofferson in sharing duties to guard Moberly's top scorer this season, senior Mary Billington. While Smith labored with this assignment for much of the night, the duo held Billington scoreless in the first half while holding her to making just two free throws for the entire game.

“Billington changes things for their team when she hits some 3s because it catches on with Messer, and then their offense seems to get going,” Costley said. “Team defense overall prevented that from happening. But after we started to build a lead on them, their defense forced us into turnovers. Moberly tied the score up on us, but we got to the free-throw line to where they didn't and Moberly missed a bunch of shots at the end.”

Senior Aleesia Oliver emerged as Moberly's leading scorer with nine points and Koenig finished with eight. Payne and Messer each had four points.

“This was a pretty good quality win for us and we're happy to get this one for our community and supporters on senior night. It's been fun watching this group of seniors grow within our program,” Costley said.

“But I have to say it's not just about the basketball program with this group of seniors. It's more about what each of them does for our school and community. Each of them are not just student-athletes, but they also are very active in doing so many things that help our school district in unique ways and they are involved in helping the community grow, and for that is what I'll miss more from them when they move on.”

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