By Josh Hall
The Strafford girls basketball team knows what it has accomplished in the past two seasons.
But the Lady Indians aren’t satisfied yet. Far from it.
Strafford, the defending Class 3 state champions, extended its winning streak to 46 games on Wednesday night by claiming a 61-45 victory against Mount Vernon in sectional play at Willard High School.
Now the Lady Indians (30-0) are ready for the next challenge.
“We are just thankful and humbled by all these opportunities that we get, and where we are right now,” sophomore Hayley Frank said. “We realize it’s something special. We just take it one game at a time and don’t take anything for granted.”
Strafford, the top-ranked team in the Missouri High School Basketball Coaches Association poll, hasn’t lost a game since Jan. 20, 2016 and the Lady Indians haven’t fallen to a Class 3 opponent since March 2015.
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Getting to 46-straight wins wasn’t exactly a cake walk.
Mount Vernon led the entire first quarter, before Strafford worked its way back to a 25-22 halftime lead and a 39-35 advantage entering the final period.
“We just weren’t able to get to them early,” Strafford coach Steve Frank said.
The Lady Mountaineers (23-7) pulled within one point with 6:06 to play in the fourth, but that’s when the Lady Indians made their move.
Strafford used a 16-0 run that ended at the 2:58 mark to take a 57-40 lead, and the Lady Indians were able to cruise from there.
“We knew we had to get it done on defense, and we finally got Hayley and Abby (Oliver) separated,” Steve Frank said. “With the triangle and two, they were on the same side of the floor early. Once we separated them, it just opened things up.”
Hayley Frank scored 10 of her game-high 23 points during the surge.
“For about three and a half quarters, we were there,” Mount Vernon coach Dusty Killingsworth said. “We’ve just got to finish it.”
Zoey Mullings finished with 14 points and Kayley Franked added 12 to help lead the way for the Lady Indians, who will take on Southern Boone (24-5) at 6:45 p.m. Saturday in a quarterfinal matchup at Drury University.
Strafford claimed a 69-37 win against Southern Boone on Jan. 28 in Ozark, but that doesn’t mean the Lady Indians are getting ahead of themselves.
“We’re just taking it game-by-game,” Mullings said.
Sophomore Caitlin Hicks scored 19 points and sophomore Cameron Call added 15 to lead the Lady Mountaineers, who will only graduate one senior from this year’s team.
Call, a Division I recruit, picked up her fourth foul midway through the third quarter. Mount Vernon was also without third-leading scorer Camryn Eldridge, who suffered a shoulder injury during the Lady Mountaineers’ 51-41 win against Lamar in the District 12 title game.
“They are too good to play short-handed, and our kids were unbelievable,” Killingsworth said. “I could not be prouder.”
Strafford 61, Mount Vernon 45
Mount Vernon 13 9 13 10 – 45
Strafford 11 14 14 22 – 61
Mount Vernon — Ashlyn McCanless 2, Haylee Yeats 5, Caitlin Hicks 19, Cameron Call 15, Mikala Veith 2, Lyndsey Hood 2
Strafford – Abby Oliver 8, Kayley Frank 12, Zoey Mullings 14, Hayley Frank 23, Logan Jones 4
