Bulldogs win third straight

ORAN - The Sikeston Bulldogs won their third straight game with a 66-39 road win over the Oran Eagles on Tuesday night.

The Eagles entered the game ranked No. 10 in Class 1A, but they have now lost their last two games to fall to 14-6 on the season.

The Bulldogs are now 12-9 on the season.

"There was no intensity by us at all," said Oran head coach Mitch Wood. "We came out flat, like we practiced yesterday. The kids didn't play hard. Sikeston's a good ballclub and we had to play hard just to make it a decent game, and we didn't even try to do that."

Sikeston dominated from the start, going on a 14-0 run to build a double figure lead. The Bulldogs led 21-7 after one quarter and led 30-13 midway through the second quarter.

Lavar Morgan's 3-pointer at the second quarter buzzer made it 36-20 by the half.

The Bulldogs made 8-of-14 from downtown.

"I thought we came out and shot the basketball well," said Sikeston head coach Gregg Holifield. "We had some looks there and we were fortunate to knock some shots down. We had good defensive intensity up on the basketball at times and we were able to build a lead. Oran is a good basketball team, it just wasn't their night tonight. I thought our kids played pretty well at times."

The Bulldogs continued the onslaught in the third quarter, leading 55-30 entering the final frame.

"They've got some good big post players and our post guys weren't able to score inside like we normally do," said Wood.

"Our shot selection was horrible. But you have to give (Sikeston) credit for making that happen I'm sure. The last three or four games we've had trouble scoring with Ryne (Wood) out."

Wood, the Eagles' leading scorer, has missed several games with a broken nose. He made it return on Tuesday with a protective mask but was largely ineffective, scoring one point.

Sikeston was led by Lontas McClinton's 18 points and seven rebounds. Justin Freeman followed up with 17 points, including five 3-pointers. Fourteen of his points came in the first half.

"We just elected not to guard Freeman and let him shoot those 3s," said Wood. "That definitely wasn't the gameplan. We just decided we weren't going to guard him and he's going to do that when that happens."

Morgan followed up with 16 points with 11 coming in the third quarter. Ben Anderson added five points, seven rebounds and three blocked shots.

Oran's Patrick Friga was the only Eagle to crack double digits with 11 points.

It's the fifth time this year that Sikeston has held a team under 40 points.

"The last few games our defense has been good," said Holifield. "We had the poor showing against Portageville, but other than that, about six out of the last seven ballgames we've played pretty sound defensively."

Sikeston will play at Cape Central on Friday at 6 p.m. It will mark the last game at Tiger Field House for Cape Central, who is moving into a new high school next year.

The Sikeston jayvee team improved to 11-7 on the season with a 61-31 win over Oran.

Sikeston led 19-4 after one quarter and 39-19 at the half. The Bulldogs led 45-24 entering the fourth quarter.

Freddie Wiggins led Sikeston with 12 points. Blake DeWitt added 11 and Apollo Patterson had 10.

Oran was led by Trevor Irwin's eight points.