Girls basketball

North Callaway girls allow free shots in 54-51 loss to Bowling Green

The North Callaway girls didn’t have much trouble defending Bowling Green, when not at the free throw line.

North Callaway girls, boys vs Bowling Green Photo Gallery

The Ladybirds allowed the Eastern Missouri Conference foe Lady Bobcats to go 10-for-15 at the line in the second half and 14-for-21 overall in a 54-51 loss Thursday at home. North Callaway drained 10 3-pointers but found itself going back-and-forth with Bowling Green during its Senior Night game before the potential 11th fell short at the final buzzer.

North Callaway head coach Tim Turlington said the first half was going the way the Ladybirds (14-11, 6-4 EMO) wanted as they went 7-for-10 at the free throw line in the first two quarters before taking only two shots at the stripe in the second half. North Callaway owned a 46-41 lead at the end of the third quarter after adding four 3-pointers to its total but also had eight fouls going into the fourth quarter.

“That’s the game right there,” Turlington said. “I don’t know how much I can say about that. You can’t put somebody in the bonus with three or four minutes left in the third quarter.”

While Bowling Green (12-13, 7-3 EMO) found its opportunities mostly at the free throw line, North Callaway thrived mostly beyond the arc. Turlington said that effort started with Abrielle Burgher going aggressively into the lane in the first half, finishing with 11 points and four steals, along with Riley Blevins, who had 11 points, four assists and three 3-pointers. Turlington said Thursday’s game was the best Burgher has played all season on both sides of the floor.

The Lady Bobcats shifted enough for a pinpoint pass to be planted into the palms of an open shooter, who was Natalie Shryock most of the time. Shryock finished with 21 points to lead the Ladybirds, hitting five 3-pointers along with pulling down a team-high seven rebounds.

“That’s stuff we practice,” Turlington said. “We’ve got good shooters. Let’s use them. When the shots aren’t there, let’s penetrate and get something at the rack or jumper or whatever. At times, we’d get all three of those things. We just didn’t do enough of the other two. Three was good. Getting to line, we didn’t get there enough.”

North Callaway had trouble guarding two Lady Bobcats all night as Grace Deters and Kaylyn Charlton each led with 21 points as the next highest scorer finished with six points. Bowling Green led 21-12 after the first after starting the game with a 9-0 run and ending the quarter with 10 points from Charlton.

When Charlton stepped back in the second quarter, Deters was there to pick up the slack as she silenced a 9-0 North Callaway run that kept Bowling Green ahead 23-20.

“(Deters) is nothing but hustle, she gets her teammates in and out of stuff, and she runs her team well,” Turlington said.

Before the game, the team’s two seniors — Jalyn Leible and Ellie Bedsworth — were recognized on the court. Turlington said his team had much youth, but each of his seniors have played vital roles in the starting lineup and outside of games.

“Jalyn and Ellie, in my two years here, have been really good and have worked hard,” Turlington said. “They show up every day, get better and do things that I ask them to do. It hurts my heart that we didn’t win for them tonight, but that’s life. If everybody that wanted to win won, well then nobody would ever lose.”

North Callaway finishes the regular season with its best record in six years and will start next week’s Class 3 District 7 tournament at South Callaway in Mokane as the No. 3 seed. The Ladybirds play the host South Callaway (1-23) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday for the third time this season, defeating the Lady Bulldogs 73-10 and 41-17.

“I know they’ve had a rough season,” Turlington said. “We have to go there with the mindset that it’s a business trip. We can’t have the mindset, ‘Well, we beat them twice.’ That’s how you get beat. We’re going to play our game.”

Boys basketball

North Callaway boys roughed up 61-38 against Bowling Green

The North Callaway boys had a rough end to their regular season on Thursday at home.

The Thunderbirds were defeated 61-38 by Eastern Missouri Conference foe Bowling Green on Senior Night, losing pace with the Bobcats in the second half after fighting to within 31-23 at halftime. North Callaway was outscored 30-15 in the second half and was outrebounded 30-21, allowing 11 offensive rebounds, in a new season-low for the offense.

Head coach Matt Miller said the Thunderbirds (13-12, 5-5 EMO) just had too much difficulty executing its offense outside of the second quarter, when they fought back to within 29-23 following a couple of transition buckets by Isiah Craighead. Craighead led North Callaway with 11 points, and Sam Pezold and Matthew Weber each finished with nine points.

“We didn’t execute our offense really well, whether it was just missing shots or turnovers or just not staying in continuity of what we need to do,” Miller said. “A lot of that is Bowling Green. They are a big, strong and physical team. It’s hard to score inside when they wall up.

“I thought our effort was a lot better in the second half, getting offensive rebounds. We’d get three or four shots on goal, but we just couldn’t stick it in.”

Even though the Thunderbirds were finally able to run later in the second half, Bowling Green (12-10, 6-3 EMO) took its turn and then some in the second half. Bleyne Bryant began the half with a steal and thunderous dunk.

After the all-conference running back shined a bit, the all-conference fullback Gunnar Bryant proved to be hard to handle while still being mobile in transition. He finished with 16 points and seven rebounds, scoring on three consecutive drives to the rim to push the Bowling Green lead to 42-35 with almost three minutes left in the third quarter.

“I looked out there one time in the second half and they had three guys that were all 6-3 or better out there,” Miller said. “Then they bring in their shooting guard and he is 6-3 and athletic. We zoned them in the first half and it worked at times, but then they shot the ball well. So we got out of it in the second half and it’s just pick your poison at that point.”

One of Miller’s seven seniors, Trenton Jones, led the team with seven rebounds and two blocks. He, Weber, Braydn O’Neal, Brendan Reinhard, Gavin Rasmussen, Jordan Fishburn and Gabe Heuer all played their final games on the North Callaway home court. Weber, O’Neal, Reinhard, Rasmussen and Fishburn all started the game.

Miller said Jones, Weber, O’Neal, Reinhard and Rasmussen have all been with him for four years and contributed much to being the largest senior class in Miller’s tenure with North Callaway. Heuer has been playing since sophomore year, and Fishburn joined the team last season after transferring from Boonville. Miller said he values each one of them.

“It always sucks when it’s the last time playing in front of the home crowd in their gym to get a loss,” Miller said. “Overall, besides that, they come to work every day and am really proud of what they’ve done with our program. They’re good guys, good students and am excited for their future outside of North Callaway.”

North Callaway hopes its opening round of the Class 3 District 7 tournament at South Callaway in Mokane will be a polar opposite offensive result of the regular season finale as it moves from its season-low opponent to its season-high opponent of New Bloomfield (1-23). The Thunderbirds dropped 83 points on the Wildcats earlier this season and will open as the No. 3 seed when they face them again at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

“A lot of that is our defense. In the second quarter (on Thursday), our defense was spurring our offense a little bit,” Miller said. “That’s how basketball works. The first time we played New Bloomfield, we turned them over a whole lot and let our defense spur our offense.”

Van-Far 56 Clopton 44 in Clarksville. Nikos Connaway and Cody Smith led with 15 points. Indians finish regular season 16-10 overall and 6-4 in Eastern Missouri Conference before opening its Class 2 District 5 Tournament stint at 6:30 p.m. Monday against Silex in Sturgeon.

Missouri Military Academy 57 Columbia Independent 39 in Columbia