The West Prairie/Southeastern girls basketball team jumped out to a big halftime lead and withstood a second half rally by Brimfield before pulling out a 44-27 home victory over the Indians last Thursday night.
WP/SE improved to 2-0 for the season while Brimfield dropped to 0-2.
After only winning six games last season, WP/SE head coach Grant Bland was thrilled about his team’s start to this season.
“I don’t know how far back you have to go or if we’ve ever started out 2-0 before and that means a lot to me,” said Bland afterwards. “I think it should mean a lot to them. I thought tonight was a tough task and we played well.”
Both teams struggled offensively at the start before freshman Alyvia Barkley hit a lay up at the 5:47 mark to put WP/SE up 2-0. Cyclones’ senior Madelynn Sullivan drilled a three-pointer with 5:37 to go to make it 5-0.
Brimfield finally got on the scoreboard a short time later before Sullivan drained another trey to extend the WP/SE lead to 8-2. That started an 11-0 run for the Cyclones as they closed out the first quarter with a 16-2 lead.
WP/SE dominated the second quarter and took its largest lead of the game when Sullivan converted one of two free throws to make it 29-7 with 1:29 remaining in the half.
Brimfield’s Layni Linthicum hit a jumper with just over a minute to go to make it 29-9 at halftime.
Brimfield came out the aggressor in the third quarter and outscored the Cyclones 13-6 in the period to get within 35-22 heading into the fourth quarter.
The Indians continued to claw back and got within 10 at 35-25 on a jumper by Josie Wiewel with 5:35 left in the game.
But sophomore Madison McClure stopped the WP/ SE scoring drought with a three-pointer at the 5:34 mark to start a 9-0 run to make it 44-25.
The Cyclones’ defense took over by holding Brimfield to just two free throws the rest of the way to account for the final score.
“That’s something that we’ve talked about the past few years...the third quarter has killed us in the past,” said Bland. “If you want to be a really good team, you have to come out of halftime and basically look the same as you did in the first half.
But, you have to know the other team is making adjustments, too.”
“And I told McClure that’s two games in a row where she’s hit a three late when we needed something to give us a spark.” Bland added.
Sullivan led WP/SE with a game-high 16 points including three treys while junior Kara Stephens added nine points for the Cyclones.
Katie Doe led Brimfield with nine points.
“(Sullivan) is our leader,” Bland said. “Everything just seems to run through her which is awesome. It’s crazy that she can play so hard on defense and then turn around and do the same thing on offense and have the ability to shoot the ball well.”
WP/SE is scheduled to play in the Hornet Classic in Mt. Sterling the week of Nov.22-29 before returning home to face United on Dec. 1 in Colchester. Tip-off is scheduled for 6 p.m.
