Mexico knew they had special players last year and those girls showed up on Tuesday night.

The Lady Bulldogs beat Marshall 62-50 in their North Central Missouri Conference opener at home after sophomores Alyssa Miller and Scottie Smith combined for 44 points. Miller led with 24 points and eight rebounds, and Smith had 20 points and six rebounds.

Head coach Makenzie Mudd said Miller and Smith can score, rebound and defend really well. She said Mexico (2-3) depends on them to do a lot of jobs. For example, Smith was tasked with defending Aidyn Wilcoxson and Josephine Reinke, who led Marshall (1-5) with 16 and 14 points, respectively.

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“We always task her with defending one of their better players because she’s got those long arms and that speed,” Mudd said. “Sometimes, she runs around like crazy and wears herself out, but she does a really great job on defense and then turns around and finds scoring opportunities on offense.”

While Mexico’s Montgomery Tournament finale on Saturday was a 75-57 loss to Hermann, Miller had 27 points and 13 rebounds in that game, and she had 10 points and nine rebounds in Mexico’s 61-25 first-round win against Fulton.

“Alyssa works hard, finds good shot opportunities and gets up there to get those second-chance opportunities,” Mudd said.

Miller said she has played with Smith since they were young girls. While it felt great to start conference play with a victory at home, it also felt sweet that they each had big games.

“Me and her have played together since we were younger so it’s easy to play with her,” Miller said. 

Grace Hudson followed their scoring with nine points, five assists and three steals. Hudson was on the Montgomery County all-tournament team after averaging 17.7 points in three games. 

Against Marshall, Hudson found open teammates several times with interior passes. Miller said the Lady Bulldogs executed well on those plays.

“The pick and roll was working really well,” Miller said. “I would screen for Grace, and she would pass the ball.”

Marshall did fight back at times during the game but never took away Mexico’s lead. The Lady Bulldogs led by four points at the end of the first and second quarters, but the lead grew to as large as 13 points in the third quarter. 

Mudd said Mexico grew “too comfortable” with its leads and sat back too much to give up easy points. She said the Lady Bulldogs had to “continue to push.”

“Defensively, we were up in that press, and we did a really good job on the top,” Mudd said. “On the backside, we were watching what the top was doing and not rotating back so we gave up too many easy layups. We made sure to continue pushing ourselves to be like, ‘Hey, it’s my turn to get back and stop that easy layup.’”

Mexico hopes to keep its success going against reigning NCMC champion Kirksville (2-1) at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Mudd said Mexico has the ability to execute its press defense with its long arms and speed. Working well together at those moments can give the Lady Bulldogs more success, and that applies to every other moment on the court.

“We just have to make sure we are covering all sides of (our press),” Mudd said. “We have a tendency to do one part of our press really well but fall apart on the other. Once we can get every piece together, I think it’s going to a really strong moment for us.”