By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
According to Nevada girls basketball coach Blake Howarth, the Tigers always have a goal to hold their opponents under their season scoring averages.
They accomplished that again Friday in a 45-29 victory over Cassville in the Class 4 District 12 championship game on their home court, against a Wildcats team that came in averaging about 54 points.
“We hang our hat on the defensive end and that’s what we want to do,” Howarth said.
“Our girls did a good job of talking through some different things at halftime and then coming out and executing those things,” he said. “To hold them to those points in the second half was huge. Defense, it’s always about defense and we’ve got to be tenacious on the defensive end.”
Nevada, 21-4, advances to face Reeds Spring, 21-7, in the sectional round at Monett on Monday.
“It’s fantastic, it feels great,” Howarth said. “Like I’ve told everybody, this is something we wanted to do, and this group is so deserving of it. I’m so proud we were able to accomplish that as a team and get this district championship as a team.”
The top-seeded Tigers, who allowed an average of 37 points a game entering Friday, led by as many as 13 points in the first half before second-seeded Cassville closed the second quarter with a 9-2 run that featured two 3-pointers by Audrey Kennedy and a 3-point play by Alex Holycross. That cut it to 23-17 at halftime.
Nevada opened the third quarter with a basket by Anna Swarnes and a 3-pointer by Lucy Swearingen to get the lead back to double digits, and the Tigers defense limited the Wildcats to just two points in the quarter on a score by Holycross, which ended an eight-plus minute scoring drought.
Alaina Hardin made a 3-pointer a few minutes into the fourth to give Nevada a 35-21 advantage. Swearingen extended it to 15 with a free throw and later to 17 on another 3-pointer, though Cassville did get within 12 with 90 seconds left on a 3-pointer by Kennedy.
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE GAME
Nevada’s Grace Andersen made two free throws with 1:14 remaining, and Halle Hawks added two more with 27 seconds on the clock for the final score.
The Tigers totaled seven 3-pointers in the game––four from Swearingen, two from Anderson in the first quarter and one by Hardin in the fourth.
“The big thing was ball movement,” Howarth said. “In that first half we didn’t share the ball, move the ball very well. We talked at halftime about some adjustments we needed to make and then we did a great job with ball movement, and we were able to find those open shooters. Once some of those girls started feeling it, I always say the basketball just finds them. Our girls did a good job of knowing where they are, talking to each other and finding those shooters who were hitting.”
“We knew coming in they’re a great defensive team and that we were going to have to handle the physicality they gave us there under the basket,” said Cassville coach Clayton Bagby. “We just fought as hard as we could and offensively, we just had trouble breaking through. Defensively we probably played well enough to win but again we knew coming in that if you’re going to beat them you’re going to have to hold them down to probably under 40 and hope you can get over 40.”
Andersen and Swearingen each scored 14 points for Nevada, Swarnes scored 8, Cora Braden scored 4, Hardin scored 3 and Hawks scored 2.
Cassville was led by 10 points from Holycross. Taylor Kennedy scored 8, Audrey Kennedy scored 6, Briley Artherton scored 3 and Aubrey Stoufer scored 2.
Cassville, 20-8, finished as the district runner up for the second year in a row after falling to Aurora last season.
“It was another good year,” Bagby said. “We toughened the schedule up a little bit and we still were able to match the record from last year. We were able to get back here again. But now we want those girls to take that next step and get back here and actually win one for Cassville.”
