The firsts hadn't been that strong for the Mexico girls this season.

Mexico vs Fulton Photo Gallery

In many games, the Lady Bulldogs would start slow and have to play catchup, which resulted in a loss in the first meeting with North Central Missouri Conference rival Fulton this season. That wasn't the case in Thursday's Class 4 District 8 semifinals in Mexico as the Lady Bulldogs defeated Fulton 52-41 after starting with a 21-9 first quarter.

Mexico brought its season record against Fulton to 2-1 with the victory, but it was also the second straight year the Lady Bulldogs eliminated their archrival in the semifinals to advance to the district championship, which will be at 2 p.m. Saturday against conference rival Kirksville (13-12).

"It's awesome," Hannah Loyd said. "All of us worked together really well tonight and came hard off the bat, which has been kind of different for us."

Loyd said the Lady Bulldogs have been aware that their first quarters needed to be better and was glad it happened after a slow start in the previous round's 58-43 win over Moberly on Tuesday. Mexico trailed 14-10 after one quarter in that game.

This time, Loyd scored a couple of buckets before finishing with 10 points, and Claire Hudson led early with nine of her game-high 19 points to go with eight rebounds. Scottie Smith finished with 10 points, nine rebounds and two blocks, and Alyssa Miller added eight points, six rebounds and three steals.

"All of us were ready to play," Loyd said. "We knew what we wanted and made them work for it. It was easy to come out strong and hard."

Head coach Makenzie Mudd experienced something extra for the second straight year. Her players showered her with water following another semifinal victory over Fulton.

"When we play Fulton, there is always that rivalry where we want to beat them," Mudd said. "They beat us that first time out this season, so ever since, we're not going to let them get us, especially since it was here this season."

Mudd said Mexico didn't want "to let our fans down" and thought the energy it brought was because of that motivation. Pretty soon, the lead in the first quarter grew to as large as 14 points and was even as high as 17 points before halftime.

Mexico outrebounded Fulton 35-27, gathering putback after putback early. Mudd said the Lady Bulldogs showed good energy in other ways, too.

"When we made shots, we did a good job of picking wach other up in saying, 'Good shot, good attempt, good rebound' or a lot of that encouraging of each other. That teamwork piece of it helped everybody feel confident in taking shots."

Mexico was confident to take perimeter shots even if they ended up as misses, Mudd said, and those eventually turned in makes when the Lady Bulldogs needed to pull away.

Conversely, Fulton couldn't get enough going from the outside, unlike in the previous two meetings, as the Lady Hornets finished with three 3-pointers. Audrey Arnold led with 15 points, and Alison Skinner followed with six points.

"We put a lot of defense on Audrey Arnold since she's their strongest player," Mudd said. "If we can take the ball out of her hands as much as possible, it's hard for them to get stuff going."

When Arnold hasn't hit them for Fulton this season, Skinner has been a secondary option that has allowed the Lady Hornets to hang around or pull away in the first game this season. Skinner's only two field goals happened in the fourth quarter.

"She can make it from anywhere," Mudd said. "That's why we talked a lot about, when we went to that box-and-one, making sure we exploded to the corner."

Mexico did have a win  over Fulton this season going into districts, the same can't be said about Kirksville. It has been close, however, as the Lady Bulldogs lost by three points in Mexico and then six points in Kirksville later in the season. Each of the previous five games between the conference rivals has been decided by single digits. 

Mudd said she hopes Mexico can bring its Fulton intensity into this third matchup with Kirksville. 

"They're a strong outside shooting team," Mudd said. "It's making sure we get out on them and cut down on their opportunities to score from the outside and making sure we're packing the paint because they do a good job of driving to the lane."