Lady Bulldogs turn back Cape Central 47-43

sports@standard-democrat.com

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- It may not have been the most dominant of efforts, but with a strong second half the Sikeston Lady Bulldogs found a way to keep their strong second half of the season going Wednesday against host Cape Central.

Led by a 22-point effort from senior Mikala Nichols the Lady Bulldogs held off a late Lady Tiger push for a 47-43 win.

"We battled against a Cape team that's really improved," Sikeston head coach Matt Schonhoff said. "Cape played extremely hard. We had some problems there at the end of the fourth quarter rebounding, but I thought we had some stretches there where we weren't hitting shots.

"We kept on playing some good defense and kept (Kassidy) Pannier in check, which was one of our goals for the game."

Pannier was limited to only a pair of first half 3-pointers by the Lady Bulldogs, but the Lady Tigers still led all but the opening two minutes of the first half.

Sikeston's Erica Peet (24) attempts a layup against Cape Central Wednesday at Cape Central High School. (Brent Shipman photo)

Sikeston's Erica Peet (24) attempts a layup against Cape Central Wednesday at Cape Central High School. (Brent Shipman photo)

They pulled away by as many as seven points midway through the second quarter, but a 7-1 Sikeston rally to close out the half had the Lady Bulldogs back within a point, 17-16.

A Nichols jumper to start the second half gave Sikeston its first lead since the opening minutes of the contest and the two teams matched each other shot for shot the first five minutes of the half.

It wasn't until only 2:54 remained in the third period that the Lady Bulldogs got a little separation with a natural 3-point play from Alana Basham. They went on a 7-1 run in the remaining 1:08 of the quarter to take a 36-28 advantage into the fourth.

A big part of the Lady Bulldogs' surge can be credited to Nichols getting hot at the right time. After a couple big baskets at the end of the first half, she hit three of her first four shots in the third quarter and contributed nine points as Sikeston outscored Cape 20-11 in the period.

"Midway through the second quarter Mikala got hot," Schonhoff said. "That was huge for us. She hit some threes, spread out the defense and allowed our inside game to get going. We got some good penetration and some easy scores."

Facing their largest deficit of the night to start the fourth, 36-28, Cape put together a 10-4 run to start the quarter. It was Morgan Duschell sinking a pair of free throws with 2:43 to play that closed Cape Central's gap to two at 40-38.

Sikeston's answer was back-to-back baskets by Nichols and Peet to pull away by six points, 44-38, with 1:32 remaining.

Sikeston head coach Matt Schonhoff talks to his players during a timeout Wednesday at Cape Central High School. (Brent Shipman photo)

Sikeston head coach Matt Schonhoff talks to his players during a timeout Wednesday at Cape Central High School. (Brent Shipman photo)

Cape started sending the Lady Bulldogs to the foul line soon after, where they converted on three of their final six attempts. This kept Sikeston's six-point lead intact going into the final 10 seconds.

A pair of harmless free throws from Kelley Morton with only 1.4 second to play that made up the final.

"Our pressure was good and we got some steals when we needed to," Schonhoff said. "We we're patient on offense, got good shots and when we needed to hit shots we hit them. In the fourth quarter when we needed to hit free throws we hit free throws."

Nichols and Peet easily carried the lion's share of the Lady Bulldog's offensive effort against the Lady Tigers. They combined for 40 of their team's 47 points with Nichols' game-high 22 points leading the charge.

Nichols scored 15 points in the second half alone and had Sikeston's only two 3-pointers while going 4 of 6 at the free throw line. Peet finished the game with 18 points, scoring nine of the Lady Bulldog's 16 first half points.

"I told the girls when we win, we don't win pretty sometimes," Schonhoff said. "We're not a great shooting team, but no matter who is scoring we're a team. Miranda (Harrison) got a big put-back and Alana got a big and-one, both in the second half and pushed our lead out. We got some good minutes from some good people."

For Cape, Madison Daum had a team-high 10 points with Morton and Deja Stewart scoring nine and seven points respectively. Pannier finished with six points, all of 3-pointers.

With the win the Lady Bulldogs move to 12-10 on the season and continue a strong turnaround since the holidays. They'll play their final two home games of the year today and Monday against Farmington and Park Hills respectively.

Their final game of the regular season comes next Thursday at Dexter.

"We've been playing pretty well since Christmas," Schonhoff said. "We're 9-5 since then and definitely moving in the right direction and being a team that hopefully is clicking where we need to come tournament time."

Sikeston 6 10 20 11 - 47

Cape Central 7 10 11 15 - 43

SIKESTON (47) -- Tyra Bonner 2, Mikala Nichols 22, Erica Peet 18, Miranda Harrison 2, Alana Basham 3. FG 17, FT 11-18, F 19. (3-pointers: Nichols 2. Fouled out: none.)

CAPE CENTRAL (43) -- Morgan Duschell 2, Kelly Morton 9, Sarah Boerboom 5, Kassidy Pannier 6, Madison Daum 10, Katherine Morton 2, Deja Stewart 7. FG 11, FT 17-25, F 15. (3-pointers: Pannier 2. Fouled out: none.)