The North Callaway girls didn’t crumble under the pressure on Thursday, Feb. 1 at home.

North Callaway vs Elsberry Photo Gallery

The Ladybirds outscored Eastern Missouri Conference foe Elsberry 12-7 in overtime and 33-28 after the first half to win 54-49, making it their fifth straight win and second overtime victory in four games. North Callaway made 10-for-12 free throws in overtime and 14-of-18 in the game to secure the victory.

Head coach Andrew Klein said he was impressed with the timely free throws and rebounds — North Callaway (15-7, 5-2 EMO) outrebounded 29-20 — to win a tightly contested game and has been liking the Ladybirds’ second-half efforts as of late. After back-to-back losses to Montgomery County and Hallsville that saw North Callaway outscored 65-37, North Callaway has won nine of 12 while outscoring opponents 381-295 in that stretch. The Ladybirds have only fallen three points short in the second half of two of those games but have otherwise been the better team after the intermission.

“We do a really good job of playing in close games and finishing strong,” Klein said. “We come out of halftime really, really well most of the time. Ever since that first game against Montgomery where we got knocked out in the third quarter, every third quarter since then has been our best quarter. We just take pride in that. We know that we can reset down there, and the game isn’t too far away from us when we got scorers on the floor.”

Several of those same scorers came through against Elsberry (13-7, 4-2 EMO) — who went into Thursday the winner of nine of the previous 10 meetings — including Abrielle Burgher when she finished with 12 points, five assists and four steals. Lakyn Hartley matched Burgher’s scoring total along with nine rebounds, including seven offensive. Natalie Shryock finished with 11 points and three blocks, and Riley Blevins added nine points, five assists, three steals and two blocks.

Hartley, Shryock and Blevins combined to put Elsberry away from the free-throw line, making a respective four, four and two shots. Klein said the Ladybirds’ commitment to perfect their foul shooting outside of practice gives his team a good shot in tight games.

“This isn’t the first time where we’ve shot free throws really well down the stretch,” Klein said. “I don’t think it’s going to be the last. That’s a credit to the girls working on that. Doing it in the game, it comes down to them working in their driveway and them working over the summer on that stuff.”

Elsberry could only snag a lead momentarily but did enough to make North Callaway make plays. Kelsi Chagolla put back her own miss and then Mya Pflasterer, who finished with 25 points, hit a free throw for a 42-40 Elsberry lead in the final seconds. After Elsberry nearly came away with a steal out of a timeout, North Callaway called another one that preceded Burgher finding Kymorie Myers, who had eight points and four rebounds, for an open layup after driving toward the rim.

Previously, Burgher banked in a 3-pointer to give the Ladybirds a slight lead and found Blevins under the basket for a key bucket. All of this was done with four personal fouls after picking up three in the fourth quarter while defending Pflasterer, who Klein said will be tough to deal with when she is a senior next season.

“She’s a heck of a player, and she just about hit a game-winning shot on us at the buzzer,” Klein said. “Guarding a girl like that, you’re going to pick up fouls. AB (Abrielle Burgher) knows that. AB has played with four fouls this year, and she does a heck of a job still battling. She doesn’t give up anything still. She moves her feet better than most.”

“Normally, when I play defense, I kind of test the waters a little bit,” Burgher said when playing one foul away from the limit. “I just step back a little bit. I went as far as I could, but I was just careful.”

Burgher has led North Callaway in scoring in three of four games, including a 22-point performance in a 66-59 overtime victory against Silex. She knew exactly what to do for the game-tying bucket after attracting the Elsberry defense’s attention.

“I drove in, and everybody swarmed to me,” Burgher said. “Kymorie was wide open right there on the right block, and she banked it in.”

Klein said the timeout he called after Elsberry’s near steal was not only used to call a different play but discuss what happens when the Ladybirds make the shot, as a way to “speak it into existence.”

Both Klein and the Ladybirds agreed that rebounding hadn’t been as much of a strength from them going into Thursday but liked how Elsberry only had three rebounds in the four-minute overtime. Throughout the game, he said North Callaway’s strategy to make Elsberry take longer 2-point shots from midrange instead of short shots following cuts to the rim set up the Ladybirds well to where they just had to pull the ball down.

“Rebounding has been our Achilles heel this year,” Klein said. “We really need to take pride in that, and they did tonight.”

“I think we all just really wanted it,” Burgher said.