There wasn’t just one but two special basketballs presented at Gary Filbert Court on Tuesday night.

Prior to the game, Mexico boys head coach Darren Pappas was recognized for winning his 100th career game on Feb. 10 at St. Elizabeth and then had the honor of giving junior DJ Long a special ball for scoring his 1,000th career point at the end of the first half of Mexico’s 62-42 victory against North Central Missouri Conference foe Hannibal (8-16, 3-7 NCMC). The Bulldogs (17-9, 8-2 NCMC) won their regular season finale — the same night seniors Jordan Shelton, Anthony Shivers and Dante Kelley were honored on Senior Night.

The momentous bucket occurred right before Mexico took a 29-23 lead into halftime as Long glided through the air before finishing at the rim in transition. The Bulldogs were effective on the run and were clicking after the first quarter thanks to the play of their point guard Long, head coach Darren Pappas said, which goes beyond the team-high 18 points he had on Tuesday.

“He’s a really good offensive player and scorer, but I think, most importantly if you watched this game tonight, he had a ton of assists too. He’s not just a one-track minded offensive player. He can definitely dish it out as well, reading what the defense was giving him and finding the open man.”

Pappas said Long has provided the Bulldogs with the right balance of scoring and facilitating from the point guard position the previous two years. Long arrived in Mexico after playing his freshman year at Van-Far.

Ever since becoming a Bulldog, Pappas said Long has developed a chemistry with his teammates as he was spreading assists to everybody. Shelton finished with 13 points, Shivers followed with 10 points and two 3-pointers, PJ Perkins had eight points and seven rebounds, and Jaydon Eldridge had seven points and seven rebounds.

“If everybody eats, it comes out as a win as we’ll end up with more points,” Long said. “I make sure I get everybody the ball and they make sure they give me the ball so everybody is getting some points on the board and contributing to the team.”

Long considers his teammates as the main reason he was able to reach 1,000 points in his career. Much work has also gone into his shot as Long has wanted to reward his teammates whenever they set him up to score.
“Making shots (got me here),’ Long said. “Shooting in the gym on the gun everyday and something like that helps with that.”

Pappas admits Mexico’s first quarter against Hannibal was “sluggish” as everything started to fall into place after its run starting in the second quarter. Prior to that, Hannibal began the game ahead 7-0 but eventually lost the lead to Mexico at 12-11 at the end of the first quarter, following a Shelton 3-pointer and a Long dunk.

Mexico didn’t give Hannibal much time to breathe as the Bulldogs quickly embarked in transition on offense and blanketed the Pirates on defense.

“We did a really good job of putting pressure on their ball handlers, generating some turnovers and then capitalizing off those turnovers,” Pappas said. “That was definitely the emphasis.”

Shelton and Shivers combined for 13 points in the second half even though the starting group sat for some of the fourth quarter after taking a 43-31 lead after the third quarter and then pushing it to 20 points.

Pappas said Shelton, Shivers and Kelley have not only contributed to the program on Tuesday but over the previous four years, helping Mexico average 20 wins during that span.

“All three of them mean a lot to our program and are a huge part of our success over the past few years,” Pappas said. “Anthony Shivers, he’ll give you everything he’s got, obviously one of our top defenders. Jordan Shelton, extremely athletic and did a really good job this year playing the 2 guard spot. Dante Kelley is banged up so that’s why he didn’t play a whole lot tonight, but when we get him in there, he gives us everything he's got at every single day of practice and every single game.”

Pappas said he wanted to make Kelley and everyone was rested for No. 3 seed Mexico’s opening district matchup with No. 6 Moberly (3-21) at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Class 4 District 8 tournament in Moberly. Mexico defeated the conference rival Spartans 85-47 on Feb. 27, scoring a season-high on Moberly’s home court, but Pappas said the Bulldogs can’t take a third game against the Spartans lightly.

“After tonight’s game, we have to get better defensively. We can’t come out sluggish like we did in the first half,” Pappas said. “It’s ever easy beating a team three times in a season. We can’t be going in too confident and play our game and play our style of basketball.”