~Top seeds roll in first night of SCAA tourney
BLOOMFIELD -- The first round of the Stoddard County Tournament kicked off on Monday night, with top-seeded Dexter blistering eight-seeded Richland 113-45, and second-seeded Bell City rolling past seventh-seeded Puxico 107-58.
The tournament will be back in action tonight, with third-seeded Advance taking on sixth-seeded Bernie at 5:30 p.m., followed by Bloomfield versus Woodland at 8:30 p.m.
The Bearcats blew the game wide open early, hitting five 3-pointers in the first quarter to take a 26-11 lead. Things just got worse from there as Dexter outscored Richland 29-16 in the second period and 37-9 in the third.
The Bearcats finished the game with 12 treys, coming from six different players.
Chris Hyten, Willie Dooley, Preston Clark, Drew Eubanks, Josh Miller and Justin Devers each contributed two 3-pointers in the win.
Richland drained six treys in the loss, with five coming from Scott McGarity. On the night, McGarity was the bulk of Richland's offense, scoring a game-high 28 points.
Dexter had five players finish in double figures. Hyten led the way with 22, followed by Derek Demaree with 21, Dooley with 18, Miller with 17 and Clark with 10.
Dexter (11-3) will play the winner of a Bloomfield-Woodland game on Thursday at 7 p.m. Richland (0-14) will host Dexter on Feb. 4.
Kenyon Wright hit six 3-pointers and scored 28 points overall as Bell City crushed Puxico, 107-58. Dominitrix Johnson and Eric Henry were in usual form for the Cubs, scoring 29 and 27 points respectively.
Bell City outscored Puxico 30-8 in the first quarter and never looked back, posting 23 points in the second period, 28 in the third, then 26 in the fourth.
Behind Johnson, Henry and Wright, Derek Pobst and A.J. Henry each scored five. Ben Duncan and Ty Brown both added four, and Zak McIntyre scored three. Randy Conn scored two. Kyle Hale led Puxico with 18 points. Ryan Smith contributed 13 in the loss.
Bell City (15-2) will play the winner of an Advance-Bernie game on Thursday at 8:30 p.m. Puxico (4-9) will host East Prairie on Feb. 4.
In the opening round of the junior varsity tournament on Monday, Dexter defeated Puxico 83-15 and Bell City beat Richland 58-39. Tonight, Advance will play Bloomfield at 4 p.m., followed by Woodland-Bernie at 7 p.m.