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Dexter girls make case for top seed in districts
DEXTER -- Two of the area's top teams squared off Friday night when the Dexter Lady Bearcats took on the visiting Lady Pirates of Perryville. In the end, Dexter made a solid case for the No. 1 seed at districts, beating their Class 4 opponent 52-36.
In what proved to be a very physical outing, both teams found themselves right at home.
"It didn't bother us at all," said Perryville head coach Vicki Lohmann, in response to the games physicality. "We like to play physical, it makes sure we're playing hard out there."
However, it was the Lady Bearcats who seemed to prosper most out of the physicalness as the aggressive play helped to increase the tempo for the home team and that's how Dexter head coach Chad Allen claimed to like things.
"I definitely like to see other teams try to play an up tempo game with us because I almost think that's more in our advantage," said Allen. "We played really aggressive, the refs definitely let us play and it was a real physical game.
"I think conditioning was a little bit of a factor there at the end but we ended up pulling away and we're just glad to come out of here with a win."
The Lady Bearcats had a slow start as midway through the first quarter they found themselves tied with the visiting team 4-4. But after 5-9 junior forward Ashlee Taylor hit two free throws to give her team their first lead of the game at 6-4, the hot hand of Katelyn Heil came around as back-to-back baskets gave Dexter a 11-5 lead heading into the second quarter.
From there the home team would then increase their lead to 24-16 after a five minute scoring drought from the Lady Pirates allowed the Lady Bearcats to go on an 8-0 run before the half.
"I thought we started playing more of a one-on-one game and it ran our offense way out of position," said Lohmann. "We've got to play a five person game and we didn't do that tonight."
The Lady Bearcats continued to extend their led to double digits in the third quarter at 41-28 as they went on to coast to a 52-36 final.
Taylor lead Dexter with 15 point while Jill Temples got in on the action with 12. Heil and Abbie Warren also came away with eight points a piece.
"Perryville is a very good ball club, real physical, after every loose ball and it was hard to adjust coming off of our previous games," said Taylor. "But in the second half we came together, continued to work hard and came away with the win. We've worked hard all year and it's really starting to pay off."