The Mexico girls earned important first victories on Wednesday but also extended a winning streak. The Lady Bulldogs defeated North Central Missouri Conference and district rival Fulton 47-29 in the consolation bracket of the Montgomery County Varsity Basketball Tournament, defeating the Lady Hornets (0-3) for the 18th straight time. First-year head coach Makenzie Mudd earned her first career victory as Mexico (1-3) went into the win column for the first time this season after finishing 12 steals and nine scorers.
"Since my freshman year, I've never lost to Fulton and the other seniors have never lost to Fulton," senior Jo Thurman said. "Coming in, it was a big game for us, at least, because we were like, 'We have to fix what we're doing now or we're going to lose to Fulton and that is just not what we want to do.'"
Thurman and Kylie Burnett led the scoring with nine points each, Grace Hudson had seven points and three steals off the bench, and Karlee Sefrit finished with seven points and went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line. Audrey Arnold led Fulton with 12 points, including two 3-pointers and 10 points in the third quarter.
"They've got strong outside shooters so we worked on movement to stop that," Mudd said. "We worked on trying to stop the entry passes in the post, and I felt like we did a pretty good job at that, and then the transition to offense and try to get some quick points early to get the morale up and get the speed and tempo up."
Mexico faces New Haven (2-1) at 6 p.m. Friday in the Montgomery County High School gym for fifth place after the it defeated Bowling Green 37-13 on Wednesday.
Look for the full story in the Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, edition of the Mexico Ledger.