Bloomfield, Missouri - The Bloomfield Wildcats were at home Friday night as they played host to the Malden Greenwaves.  Coming off a dissappointing loss to the Dexter Bearcats earlier in the week, the Wildcats were anxious to get back on their winning track.

Malden jumped out to a first quarter lead over the Wildcats 16 to 15, led by the Greenwaves' Cortez Dobbins with 4 field goals.  But Zach Baker and Brett Ruch were able to keep the game tight with 5 and 4 points respectively. 

But Bloomfield found an little firepower in the 2nd quarter as Zac Goode lit up the night from 3-point land.  Goode dropped 3 bombs in the basket and a free throw for 10 points in the quarter.  Ruch added 5-points and Thomas Sanders contributed 4-points for the Wildcats giving them a halftime lead over Malden of 37 to 33.

Brett Ruch remained hot in the third quarter putting up another 8-points for Bloomfield extending their lead to 7 going into the final quarter of play.  Unfortunately, the Wildcats hit a wall on their scoring, only able to find 6-points compared to the Greenwaves 13-points.  Malden's Malik Perkins dropped 8-points in the 4th and if you do the math, that was just enough to send this game into overtime.

In the overtime period, Perkins remained hot for the Greenwaves with six more points of his total 23-points on the night.  The Greenwaves outscored the Wildcats 9 to 5 in the OT period to win the game by a final score of 64 to 60.

“Malden made a lot more plays down the stretch than we did, so all the credit to Malden," noted Head Coach Jason Karnes.  "They played a very good game."

That loss drops the Wildcat's record to 8-7 for the season and they will face the Bernie Mules.  Both Bernie and Bloomfield found this past week to be tough with Bernie losing to Caruthersville and Dexter and Bloomfield suffering this loss to Malden and an earlier loss to Dexter.

"We have got to learn to be more consistent for a tough stretch of games coming up for us,” Karnes added.

 

Neelyville MO - The Dexter Lady Bearcats traveled to Neelyville on Thursday night in a rematch of the Twin Rivers Christmas tournament finals.  The Lady Tigers came out in a 1-2-2 zone defense which gave the Cats some problems early on. The game was tied at 7 each before baskets by Whitehead, Patterson, Harris, Jarrell and Noe allowed the girls to take a 22-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Written by
Dee Loflin, SMT Writer

Bernie, Missouri – The Caruthersville Tigers defeated the Bernie Mules with an overwhelming lead of over 20 points.  The Tigers were in front of a home crowd and the state-ranked Mules could not overpower them.  Final score was 76-54.

Bernie Mules coach Brad Botsch said, “We had a real disappointing effort tonight.  I thought we came in with a good game plan and a good idea on how to beat them, but we simply didn’t execute and thus got our tails whipped.”

Caruthersville outscored the Mules in each quarter and were leading 36-27 at the half.  The Tigers just simply dominated Bernie even though the Mules have a well-coached team and disciplined.  They typically don’t give up points.

Bernie Forward Joey Walker had a team high of 18 points along with David Bake who made 14 points on the evening.  The Tigers had five players in double digits with Jamal Johnson leading with 20 points.  The Tigers also utilized him on 3-pointers as he made four of the five during the game. 

“We were noncompetitive much of the night, and we have zero chance to beat a good team when we don’t compete as hard as we can all the time,” stated Botsch.  Back in February of 2012 Caruthersville dominated Bernie as well.  This is a tough team to beat and the Mules are going to have to extra hard for the next  one. 

BERNIE (54) - Troy Kirkpatrick 4, Justin Stanfield 4, J.R. Pregel 6, Bubby Schwent 3, David Baker 14, Joey Walker 18, Brad Freed 5. FG 25, FT 4/7, F 7. (3-pointers: none. Fouled out: none)

CARUTHERSVILLE (76) - Jamal Johnson 20, Steve Rodgers 17, Cortez Gooden 10, Coleman Tramble 13, Darrell Monroe 13, Tyler Grissom 3. FG 34, FT 3/8, F 14. (3-pointers: Johnson 4, Rodgers 1. Fouled out: none)

Bernie now has their second loss placing them 12-2 on the season and will host Dexter this Friday, January 11, 2013.  This should be a great game between the two rivalries.

Dexter, Missouri - The Bearcat Event Center was the place to be Tuesday night as the long awaited contest between the neighboring communities of Dexter and Bloomfield was set to take place.  With a varsity record of 8-6, the Bloomfield Wildcats were favored, although coming off two regular season wins, the Bearcats were noticeably filled with a new confidence as the game started.

Not long into the contest, fans could quickly see that that this was going to be a tight basketball game.  Neither team could open up a large spread in the score with each of the first three quarters ending with Bloomfield having a 1-point lead at the end of one and tied at the end of quarter two and three (27 and 40 respectively). 

Bloomfield looked to have a slight upper hand in the first quarter as Austin Williamson (6-points) and Thomas Sanders (5-points) led the way for the Wildcats.  Caleb Baker hit a nice 3-point shot in the opening quarter, along with Austin Battles adding two free throws. 

The Bearcats answered within one point of Bloomfield as Chase Young (6) and DJ Dowdy (4) delivered strong aggressive moves to the basket.  Potts was very quick to spin from the high post and move down the lane to add 5-points for the 'Cats.

Both teams matched their defensive performances only allowing 11-points for the quarter.  Bloomfield's Zac Good found an open area on the court, adding three back-to-back three-point shots during the quarter.  Dowdy and Young both had a three-pointer each in the quarter combined with a couple of points by Potts and Jordan Miller, leaving the half time score tied at 27.

Dexter spread the offensive game in the third quarter among five players.  Zac Good for the Wildcats found yet another 3-pointer and Brett Ruch was able to break the ice on his offensive game.  Both teams scoring 13-points, the game entered the final quarter with the score Dexter 40 and Bloomfield 40.

The fourth quarter was a free-for-all as both teams worked hard to attack the basket.  Brett Ruch lead the Wildcats with 5-points in the quarter and Caleb Baker found another 3-point shot late in the game from the right corner. 

If you think that the time spent practicing free throws doesn't matter, double check that with  Dexter Bearcat coach, Rob Nichols.  His Bearcat team was 10 for 13 (near 77%) in the last quarter to win the game by a final score of 52 to 48.  Bearcats' Dowdy, Potts and Miller were two for two while Chase Young made four of six shots from the charity stripe to help ensure the victory.

"We didn't do enough things right down the stretch to be successful on the road tonight," commented Bloomfield's Head Coach Jason Karnes.  "We have got to find a level of consistency between our effort and execution for us to be competitive in a tough stretch of games coming up for us."

Bloomfield will return home this coming Friday to take on the Malden Greenwaves.  The Bearcats will take their game on the road to Bernie.

Junior Varsity:

The junior varsity teams were equally a good match up of talent between the two teams.  The Bearcats opened slowly in the first quarter, but powered back in the second quarter with 14-points to hold a 19 to 16 lead at half time.  Dexter continued to expand their lead in the 2nd half winning the game by a score of 42 to 39. 

Jacob Pedigo and Chandler Young shared the top spot of the scoring column for the Bearcats with 10-points each.  They were joined by a strong performance by Ethan Flowers with 8-points, Austin Aldridge with 5 and Cole Renken with 4.  Kendrick McCullough lead the Wildcats with 21-points.  Cole McClard and Nathan Newell each kicked in 6-points, Nathan Vandiver had 4-points and Austin Bond had 2-points.

---

Kennett, MO -  The Dexter Lady Cats love to create their offense through their defense and scoring of transition. Saturday they weren't able to do that in their game with Webster Groves, as they had to grind out a win. Monday night that was not the case as they ran past the Kennett Lady Indians 89-17.