By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
For the Carthage girls basketball team, an early season loss actually helped provide a spark.
The Tigers hosted top-ranked Kickapoo in the team’s third game of the 2020-21 season and went toe-to-toe with the Chiefs before ultimately losing by nine points. That Kickapoo team went on to win 29 games and finish third in Class 6.
And Carthage went on to go 15-11, the team’s first winning season since 2015-16, under second-year head coach Scott Moore.
“Even though we lost that game, our girls came out of that with a lot of confidence that the year could be a pretty good one for us,” Moore said. “We continued to play well leading up to the conference season, which was good, and we felt confident we could climb up the conference rankings.”
The Tigers ultimately went 4-5 in Central Ozark Conference play and finished sixth in the standings. While Moore was pleased with the improvement after an eighth-place finish as part of a 12-14 campaign in his first year, he’s hoping to keep climbing this winter.
First, Carthage must replace four seniors, including standout Hailey Fullerton, a second team All-Conference pick who also earned All-District honors. She scored 18.5 points per game and grabbed 7.9 rebounds while leading the team with 17 blocked shots and finished her career with over 1,300 points. Brinna Ream averaged 9.3 points and 4.5 points while providing the team’s best post presence, Katie Crowe averaged 3.7 points and 2.3 rebounds and was the team’s defensive stopper, and Lauren Wilson, in only 10 games, averaged 4.8 points and 2.1 rebounds. She had been a two-year starter but was injured in December.
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Carthage’s leading returner is junior Kianna Yates, an All-District player who was a second team All-COC selection and a member of the conference All-Defense team. She averaged 12.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 4.2 steals in 26 contests.
“She’s one of our leaders in all four categories which is impressive for a point guard to do,” Moore said. “We’ll rely on her a lot this year to up her scoring average as well as maybe take over a little bit more responsibility defensively. Fortunately for us she loves to create on the offensive end for herself and her teammates so we will look for her to basically run the show for us this year as a third year starting point guard. She’s starting to master the intricacies of our offense and we look forward to see where she can take us this year.”
Senior Sophie Shannon started a lot for Carthage in the post as a 6-foot-1 player and finished the year averaging 3.4 points. She was second on the team with 5.5 rebounds per game and led the Tigers with 31 blocks.
“It’s nice to bring back an experienced 6-1 post player who really enjoys playing the defensive end probably more than the offensive end,” Moore said. “We’ll probably need her to up her offensive game and score some more points for us and then still hold things down on the defensive end. We’ll need her to become a double-double machine this year.”
Sisters Presley and Raven Probert will likely start at the other guard spots. Presley, a senior, scored 2.4 points per game last year and added 33 rebounds, 24 assists and 19 steals. Raven, a junior, averaged just under two points per game and added 35 rebounds, 21 assists and 24 steals. Junior Landry Cochran could start at the four spot after averaging nearly two points and recording 46 rebounds and 13 steals.
“Those three saw a lot of varsity action last year but it wasn’t in a starting role so we’ll need them to acclimate to the pressures of starting varsity games in the COC,” Moore said.
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Other contributors should be junior Daniela Marquez, who excels in the open court, and freshmen Maggie Boyd and Lauren Choate. Boyd could play point guard and wing and could see extended minutes when the team is playing full court. Choate is a good shooter who will be expected to come in and knock down jumpers.
“I like my team to play free and fast,” Moore said. “I don’t like them to have to overthink the game of basketball. I want to play up-tempo with a team-first mentality that puts pressure on teams offensively and defensively. Offensively we like to get out and fast break as much as we can, get quick baskets. We want to take great shots but we want to take the first good shot we can and then attack the offensive glass. Defensively we like to get up and play pressure man to man in the full court and the half court. That tends to unnerve teams nowadays because more teams play a zone or a gap defense. The fans seem to appreciate our style of play and the girls really enjoy playing up-tempo basketball and having a little freedom to do what they want to do.”
Carthage will travel to McAuley Catholic Nov. 16 for a jamboree. The Tigers open the regular season Nov. 19 at Kickapoo. They’ll once again host the Lady Tigers Invitational in December.
