By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
On paper, at least, Miller looked like a small fish in a big pond at this week’s Carthage Lady Tigers Basketball Invitational.
The Class 2 Cardinals were joined in the bracket by Class 6 Carthage, Class 6 Waynesville, Class 5 Webb City, Springdale (Ark.) Har-Ber, a Class 6A school and Sunrise Christian Academy, a private school from the Wichita, Kansas area.
But the Cardinals certainly looked like they belonged. Miller, which went 28-2 last season, opened with a seven-point win against Har-Ber and then downed Carthage by 26. And there the Cardinals were on Saturday in the tournament championship against Sunrise Christian.
Final score: Miller 46, Sunrise Christian 25.
“We talked about it in practice, we were like hey we’re going to go compete with these big schools and show them what Class 2 is about,” said Miller senior Claudia Hadlock. “We did a good job of that on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We weren’t expecting to win it. We knew Har-Ber was going to be tough, we’ve scouted for Har-Ber for a long time, ever since we played Mansfield. We knew it was going to be a tough game but we beat Har-Ber and we carried it over to Carthage and carried it over to today. I think our defense defensively has won us all three games in this tournament.”
Miller, 4-0, employed a zone defense that held the Buffaloes to just four points in the first 15 minutes of the game. The Cardinals never trailed, leading 7-4 after a quarter and taking a 16-7 lead into the half.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Senior Payten Richardson did a lot of the damage early. She scored Miller’s first five points, with Alyssa Hill, Kaylee Helton, Haylie Schnake and Hadlock chipping in points before the break.
Miller’s lead grew to 24-10 in the third quarter following a three-point play by Helton, and it was 26-12 after a free throw by Hill.
Sunrise pulled back within single digits at 26-17 in the final seconds of the third, but Richardson made a free throw with 4.1 seconds left. The lead quickly doubled in the fourth.
Hadlock scored five quick points and Miller did most of its damage at the free throw line after that. The Cardinals made just four field goals in the second half, but made 15 of 16 free throws to open the fourth.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well the first half so we told them at halftime our shots are going to go in,” Miller coach Sean Price said. “We got to the free throw line and we probably made 80, 85 percent of them. That’s a good thing about it, if we can get the lead we’ve got girls who can make free throws and if teams have to foul us that gives us an advantage.”
Miller finished the game making 23 of 31 attempts at the line, including 20 of 27 in the second half.
“Last night we didn’t shoot free throws very well so we got into the gym today and shot a ton,” Hadlock said. “I don’t know what our percentage was but we made a lot more than yesterday. We were proud of that.”
Price said the Cardinals need to work on limiting offensive rebounds after Sunrise grabbed several, but the Buffaloes struggled shooting and missed several second and third-chance opportunities.
“I think the key to the game was us controlling the clock,” he said. “They had to run offense, they had to take some time off the clock. They couldn’t just come down and shoot layups or shoot any shot they wanted to. Just dictating the tempo and dictating how we wanted to play I think ended up getting us this 20-point win.”
Hadlock scored 14 for Miller and Helton and Richardson each scored 13. Hill scored six. KaMyra Barber was Sunrise’s leading scorer with a dozen points.
