The Mexico girls just need to go.

Head coach Ed Costley had those thoughts following the Lady Bulldogs’ 39-25 loss in the first round of the Montgomery County Basketball Tournament on Monday to send the No. 3 seed Mexico to the 7:30 game today against Fulton (1-2) in the consolation bracket at the middle school.

Wellsville (1-1) finished 24-for-37 at the free throw line, consistently taking shots at the line with repeated trips inside. Mexico (0-3) fell behind 33-17 after three quarters following a 9-0 Wellsville run to begin the third quarter.

Lexie Willer and Jo Thurman each led Mexico with six points, and Willer also had four steals. Capi’Ona Fountain and Addison Heim each had a team-high four rebounds for the Lady Bulldogs. Keigan Hall led Wellsville with a game-high 21 points, and Jenelle Boeckelman had nine rebounds and seven steals.

Much of the night, Mexico would run down the court in transition only to turn it over. The referees spotted the Lady Bulldogs traveling and committing other unforced errors, which hurt Mexico the most, Costley said.

“I think we had 22 (turnovers) at the end of the third quarter,” Costley said. “That’s the key. We have to find ways to get transition points. For offense, overthinking — you see a lot of it — like whether I should do this or not, and we’ve got to do a better job of playing through the flow of the game.”

Mexico’s shots from the outside fell short frequently in the first quarter and was an early sign of the Lady Bulldog’s struggles from the field. Despite that, Mexico trailed 14-9 at halftime as its tarp defense stymied Wellsville early to hold them to three field goals in the first half but only converting on two in the first couple quarters.

Mexico climbed closer to Wellsville in the second quarter after falling behind 12-6 as Heim and Thurman each reached up to snag rebounds before turning them into points at the free throw line. Heim’s two free throws at the 2:21 mark ended a Mexico scoreless streak in the second quarter.

The Lady Tigers were finding ways out of the maze of Mexico defenders in the third quarter and kept feeding the ball to Hall, who was fouled twice going up for a layup to continue that trend from the first half.

“We got to be consistently on defense as a unit communicating with each other,” Costley said. “Right now, that’s what we’re struggling with. Who’s the vocal leader? Making sure it starts out with one being vocal and then the other one carrying it through.

“It led to us defensively, in our trap situations, not being able to get out and trap like we needed to because, the next thing you know, our rotations are falling down and we’re not communicating who’s on the back side.”

Kierstan Epperson snapped the 9-0 Wellsville run at the 5:13 mark with an open layup set up by a pass from the perimeter.

After finding open teammates in the first half, Willer took the ball herself more in the second half to score all six of her points by driving to the rim. This helped outscore Wellsville 8-6 in the fourth quarter after being outscored in every previous quarter.

Mexico now must focus on North Central Missouri Conference rival Fulton after the No. 7 Lady Hornets lost to No. 2 Hermann 56-44 on Monday. Fulton led Hermann after one quarter and trailed by two points at halftime so Costley said Mexico better be as ready as Fulton was for Hermann.

“Fulton’s going to come out with full energy,” Costley said. “We’ve got to understand they’re coming at us, and we’ve got to figure out how we can bounce and be ready to go play.”

Check out the season preview for the Lady Bulldogs and the rest of the area's basketball teams in the Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022, edition of the Mexico Ledger.