The Mexico girls went back-and-forth with conference leader Kirksville on Friday until the fourth quarter.
The Lady Bulldogs were tied with conference and district foe Kirksville at 42 for their …
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The Mexico girls went back-and-forth with conference leader Kirksville on Friday until the fourth quarter.
The Lady Bulldogs were tied with conference and district foe Kirksville at 42 for their Winterwarming game and then were outscored 22-12 in the fourth quarter to lose 64-54. Mexico (9-8, 3-2 NCMC) had lost to Kirksville (13-2, 4-0 NCMC) 76-56 about a month ago but went into Friday with a four-game winning streak.
Head coach Makenzie Mudd said Mexico was tired and lapsing on defensive rotations after such a good first three quarters.
“That fourth quarter, we got a little bit lazy at certain times,” Mudd said. “They capitalized on it.”
Grace Hudson led Mexico with 18 points, Scottie Smith finished with 14 points, 10 rebounds and seven steals, and Charleigh Douglas had nine points.
Eva Danielson led Kirksville with 29 points, Macey Lehmann followed with 16 points and Brynn Shahan had 13 points.
“They do a good job of swinging the ball and attacking the lane,” Mudd said. “Their points in the paint the first time they played us were very high, and I’m sure they were again tonight. I do think we did a better job against them stopping those drives, but there is still some improvement we can make on that.”
Mexico was active on defense with 15 steals but found itself trailing 29-25 at halftime. Hannah Loyd completed a 3-point play to end the third quarter and to ensure Mexico didn’t trail heading into the fourth quarter.
“Those were good shot opportunities so nothing to be upset about,” Mudd said. “We’ve just got to get them to fall. Early on, a lot of those really good opportunities weren’t falling for us, but I’m glad we stuck with it and were able to get them to fall later in the game.”
While the fourth quarter didn’t go the way Mexico wanted, Mudd said played a tighter game this time against the likely No. 1 seed in Mexico’s district. Despite falling behind in the fourth quarter, the margin of defeat was cut in half to 10 points.
Mudd said Mexico had a better idea of what defense to run against Kirksville after the first meeting. She said Smith did well “reading on defense and forcing those turnovers on their part” to pick up steals or at least deflections to slow down Kirksville.
“We played in a different defense this time,” Mudd said. “They killed us in the lane last time so we switched to a zone in this game. I don’t think they were prepared for that. It gave us an advantage. We were able to slow down the drives.”
Before Mexico possibly meets Kirksville a third time in districts, Mudd said the Lady Bulldogs will use the rest of the regular season to their advantage.
“We need to make sure we’re figuring out what those little mistakes are that we can still fix,” Mudd said. “We have a lot of really great ideas on things we need to improve on and plenty of season to fix all that before districts.”
