BERNIE - The Puxico Indians remain in contention to take home the top prize at the Bernie Invitational.

Top-seeded Puxico trailed by nine points early but eventually rallied past the No. 8 seeded Holcomb Hornets 68-29 in the first game at the varsity boys basketball tournament Monday afternoon.  

“We started out slow,” Puxico coach Bryant Fernetti said about playing Holcomb Monday. “We weren’t making a whole lot of shots early and I didn’t feel our defensive effort was where it needed to be in the first half. But we picked it up as the game went on. Hopefully, tonight is a learning lesson that you cannot ease into any game.”

Holcomb went on a 9-0 run to jump out to an early 13-4 advantage. Puxico tied things up at 20-all by the 2:58 mark of the second quarter before moving ahead of Holcomb 32-24 by halftime. The Indians took completed control early in the 

second half as it outscored Holcomb 28-3 in the third quarter to pad its lead to 

60-27 by the start of the fourth quarter. 

“One thing that helps us is we are so deep we don’t really wear down,” Fernetti said. “As games go on, we can continue to push the pace. Tonight we talked at halftime about hitting Holcomb with a run in the third quarter to put the game away and I thought our kids did a pretty good job of executing what we talked about.”

Eight players recorded at least one field goal for Puxico. Sophomore Landon Burchard and junior Scyler Zimmerman paced the Indians in the scorebook with a dozen points each. Sophomore Jett Hancock also scored in double figures for Puxico with 10 points. Senior Thomas Burch added nine points, senior Jaydon Mitchell tallied eight points, junior Kaysen Long contributed seven points, junior Mason Parsley put up seven points, and junior Jerrett Powell finished with three points for the Indians. 

Bryce McNabb and Jacob Reeves-Crittendon paced Holcomb with eight points each.  McNabb and Reeves-Crittendon both scored all of their points in the first half.

“We did a better job of not giving up layups on our press after the first quarter,” Fernetti said. “I also thought we forced more turnovers after we switched to man to man. We also rebounded a little bit better as the game went on. Once we got our effort where it needed to be things went a lot better for us defensively.”

There were no upsets in the first round on Monday at Bernie. No. 4 seeded Twin Rivers edged No. 5 seeded Campbell 78-72 in double overtime, No. 2 seeded Neelyville outlasted No. 7 seeded Bernie 32-22, and No. 3 seeded Risco snuck past No. 6 seeded Bloomfield 42-41 in nightcap.

Puxico will take on No. 4 seeded Twin Rivers in the first semifinal at the tournament Thursday at 6 p.m. The second semifinal will feature No. 2 seeded Neelyville and No. 3 seeded Risco Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Semifinal winners square off in the championship Friday at 8:30 p.m. 

Twin Rivers beat Puxico 60-55 at the tournament last season.

“Twin Rivers is a big, physical team that is well-coached,” Fernetti said. “We cannot ease into [Thursday’s] game like we did Monday. We’ve got to be ready to go from the tip. You’ve got to be thinking about what you need to do to succeed from the time you step onto the bus. But Twin Rivers will provide us with a tough challenge and we are looking forward to playing them Thursday night.”  

No. 1 Puxico 68, No. 8 Holcomb 29

PHS 12 20 28 8 - 68

HHS 16 8 3 2 - 29

PUXICO (68) - Landon Burchard 12, Jaydon Mitchell 8, Jett Hancock 10, Mason Parsley 7, Jerrett Powell 3, Kaysen Long 7, Thomas Burch 9, Scyler Zimmerman 12. FG 26, FT 9/15, F 9. (3-pointers: Burchard 2, Mitchell 1, Hancock 1, Parsley 1, Burch 1, Zimmerman 1; Fouled out: None). 

HOLCOMB (29) - Noah Kenner 2, Jesus Valdez-Castro 2, Landon Smith 6, Devin Kelley 2, Sam Jacobs 1, Bryce McNabb 8, Jacob Reeves-Crittendon 8. FG 12, FT 3/9, F 8. (3-pointers: Smith 2; Fouled out: None).

Article by Dustin Ward

The Dexter Junior Varsity boys basketball team is loaded with talented freshman and sophomores this year.

The JV team will open their season at Charleston on Tuesday, November 28th at 6 p.m.

They will compete in the Malden JV Tournament the week of January 8th - 13th and the SCAA JV Tournament though it is not showing on the MSHSAA website at time of printing.  The SCAA Tournament will be held the week of January 22nd - January 26th at Dexter. These are the only two tournaments for the junior varsity team.

Playing for the junior varsity Bearcats are #2 Logan Fritch, #3 Will Guethle, #10 Jack Carey, #20 Caiden Richardson, #23 Gavin McMullen, #25 Langston Werneck, #30 Justus Lovely, #34 Landon Annesser, #35 Carter Stone, #40 Hunter Massey, and #44 Brayden Vaughn.

Schedule:

December 1st at Malden

December 11th Home Opener against Richland

December 12th at Jackson

December 15th at Woodland

January 5th vs Cape Central at HOME

January 8th - 13th at Malden JV Tournament

January 9th at Bloomfield

January 12th hosting Bernie

January 16th at Puxico

January 19th vs NMCC at HOME

January 30th s Sikeston at HOME

February 1st vs Notre Dame at HOME

February 2nd at Advance

February 6th vs Bell City at HOME

February 9th at Kennett

February 13th vs Poplar Bluff at Home - Last home game

All games except tournament games are slated to begin at 6:00 p.m.

The Puxico Indians returned to the hardwood on Monday attending a basketball jamboree in Leopold.

The Leopold Wildcats welcomed the Puxico Indinas and the Risco Tigers for a few games of competition to warm up for the 2023-2024 basketball season.

With tryouts and the first few practices out of the way, the Puxico Indians’ head coach Bryant Fernetti said, “It was a good way to get the year started against good competition.”

Fernetti said, “We definitely have some things to clean up but overall a positive night.”

The Indians will open their season on the road against Zalma.  Their first home game will be against Portageville on December 5th.

The Puxico Indians boys basketball program is blessed with depth and experience entering its 2023 - 2024 campaign. 

“We’ve got length inside and good guard play outside,” Puxico third-year coach Bryant Fernetti said. “It makes for a good combination. We should be able to play a lot of guys. We are going to try to keep pressure on teams the whole game since we can go so deep. I feel like we can play 11 guys on varsity so that should allow us to push the pace the entire game.” Puxico has four seniors, 10 juniors, eight sophomores, and six freshmen on its high school roster. 

“We’ve got a good group of kids that are dedicated,” Fernetti said. “They really put in the work over the summer to get better. Their families also did a great job of making sure they were at the gym working hard.”

The Indians return most of its starters off of last season’s varsity squad that finished 17-9 before falling to eventual district champion Greenville.

“Seniors Jaydon Mitchell, Trevor Fortner, and Thomas Burch all three saw quite a bit of varsity playing time as juniors, and even as sophomores,” Fernetti said. “They all three bring something different to the table. Mitchell is a good 

ball-handler and defender. Fortner has good size and possesses the ability to score inside and outside. Burch can also shoot it and play in and out as well. “Junior forward Scyler Zimmerman has also seen time on varsity since his 

freshmen season,” Fernetti continued. “He gives us good size and length. He can do a lot of different things on the court.”

The other nine juniors on the varsity squad were part of a Puxico JV team that finished 23-2 and beat Woodland in the title game of the SCAA Tournament last season. “Our junior class saw a lot of time on JV last season,” Fernetti said. “But they also had a very successful season. We have several juniors that should be ready to help us on varsity right away. We also have two sophmores - Jett Hancock and Landan Burchard - who should be ready to help us on varsity.”

Expectations remain high for the Puxico junior varsity squad as well. The Indians JV has received the No. 1 seed in the eight-team Bell City 

Invitational that begins Nov. 20. 

No. 1 seeded Puxico plays No. 8 seeded Bloomfield in its first game at Bell City on Nov. 20 at 4:30 p.m. Other opening-round games include: No 4. Leopold vs. No. 5 Kelly at 6 p.m., No. 2 Bell City vs. No. 7 Gideon at 7:30 p.m., and No. 3 Advance vs. No. 6 Scott County Central at 9 p.m. Semifinals are Nov. 21 with the title game of the JV tournament taking place Nov. 22 at 8:30 p.m. at Bell City.

“Our sophomore group has always enjoyed success,” Fernetti said. “People know those guys have had success in the past. We are going to let our 

sophomores play down in the first tournament and see how things go from there. We’ve got some freshmen that have improved since last year that are also ready to help on JV. I think depth should be a strength for our JV squad as well.”   

The Puxico varsity also opens its season in tournament play at the Bernie Invitational beginning Nov. 28. Seedings for event will be released Wednesday. 

“Last year the tournament was extremely balanced,” Fernetti said. “I think every game in the first round was a single-digit game, including the 1/8 game. We hope to get a high seed but that doesn’t mean you can overlook your first-round opponent. I’d like to think we will be seeded in the top half of the field with what we are bringing back but we better be ready to play on the first night.

“But we are looking forward to the season,” Fernetti added. “We had some really good weeks over the summer. We’ve played a lot of games leading up to this and our first days of practice have went very well.”

Playing for the varsity Indians are #1 Landan Burchard, #2 Logan Robison, 

#10 Jaydon Mitchell, #12 Jett Hancock, #13 Mason Parsley, #15 Tyler Brown, #21 Jerrett Powell, #25 Kaysen Long, #32 Waylon Powell, #33 Nikki Jones,  #34 Thomas Burch, #35 Scyler Zimmerman, #44 Carson Ward,

 #52 Trevor Fortner, and #55 Elijah Russel

Article by Dustin Ward

The Dexter Varsity boys basketball team have two athletes returning to the hardwood this year on the varsity team.  Ethan Zabelin and Nathan Harris and they are senior Bearcats.

"Coming into this year we have very little varsity experience," commented head coach Chad Allen.  "We will be very young and only three upperclassmen."

Dexter is loaded with 8 sophomores and 5 freshman; however there is only one junior and two seniors.

The Bearcats have a tough schedule in the SEMO Conference this year competing against teams like Charleston, Sikeston, New Madrid County Central, Jackson, Cape Central, and Kennett

"We are excited to get the season started and are looking to improve every game as the season goes along."

Roster is as follows #10 Gibson Booker, #1 Will Guethle, #13 Nathan Harris, #12 Hunter Massey, #11 Carter Stone, #4 John Sepulvado, #3 Tucker Temples, #24 Devin Turbo, and #5 Ethan Zabelin

Dexter opens with a jamboree at Doniphan on Thursday, November 16th.  Dexter will face Alton at 6:45 and will play with Doniphan following that game.

They will then travel to Charleston on November 28th and Malden December 1st.

The SEMO Conference Tournament is slated for December 4th - December 8th.

The Bearcats will finally be at home hosting the Richland Rebels on December 11th. before traveling to Jackson on December 12th and Woodland on December 15.

They will have a short break for competing in the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament December 26th - December 29th.

The SCAA Tournament will be held at Dexter January 22nd - January 26th.  District play begins February 26th.