Harris, Dexter get past Lady Rebels

davidj@standard-democrat.com

PARK HILLS -- The Dexter Lady Bearcats have been known all season for having a balanced scoring attack, but for one half in Wednesday night's Class 4 sectional at Mineral Area College, Brittany Harris stole the show.

The junior scored 18 first half points and pulled down nine rebounds before the rest of the Lady Bearcats took over in the second half in a 64-49 win over Park Hills Central.

"We have other offensive players but I was just hot in the first half and I was working hard for the ball and they got it to me," Harris said.

Trip after trip down the floor the Lady Bearcats lobbed the ball over the smaller Park Hills Central players into the 5-11 Harris and the junior did the rest with an assortment of post moves.

"(Teams) always try to play in front of me and I'm good at catching lobs so we used the lob pass a lot and that is what gets me open," Harris said.

"It looked like we came out a little nervous, which is to be expected a little bit," said Dexter coach Chad Allen. "But it looked like we were relying on Brittany Harris most of that first half. We weren't very aggressive offensively, but give Park Hills credit. I thought they came out and really battled hard and we just sort of wore them down as the game went on."

Harris scored the first six points of the game and eight in the first quarter to help lead Dexter to a slim 15-11 lead after one.

The second quarter was more of the same as Dexter's guards looked to lob the ball into Harris as Park Hills Central began to double team her. Still Harris scored 10 of the Lady Bearcats' 18 points in the frame as Dexter held a 34-30 advantage at the break.

"(Harris) definitely put us on her shoulders there in that first half," Allen said. "We went into halftime and talked about it a little bit and told them they couldn't just rely on Brittany. I thought the girls responded and the rest of them looked more aggressive that second half and looked to score."

Harris' teammates picked up the slack in the second half as the Lady Rebels began collapsing their defense down into a triple team every time the junior touched the ball.

After a Harris basket opened the third quarter, Park Hills Central freshman Sydney Skaggs answered with a basket of her own making the score 36-32 before Dexter took over the game.

The Lady Bearcats' Hannah Noe scored five-straight points and a traditional three-point play from Harris gave Dexter a 44-32 lead.

Park Hills Central then got a basket from leading scorer Riley Owens to cut the lead to 10 but Dexter finished the quarter on a 5-0 run and held a commanding 49-34 lead after three.

"I thought we really got after it defensively and a lot of that I think came down to conditioning," Allen said of his team's second half performance. "I thought we started to wear Park Hills down, especially that first half going up and down so much and I thought that was the biggest key to our win tonight."

The two teams seemed to trade baskets in the fourth quarter with Owens keeping Park Hills Central in the game with seven of her team-high 20 points in the frame.

"Owens is so hard to stop," Allen said. "She's a good shooter and she is so super fast. I think she is just as quick as Burger from Notre Dame and she's a lot of bigger. I thought it was really tough for our guards to try and handle her but I thought they did a good job."

Despite Owens' efforts, Park Hills never got any closer than 10 points in the fourth quarter and Dexter held on to advance to the Class 4 quarterfinals.

Harris led Dexter with a game-high 25 points while pulling down 14 rebounds. Noe added 14 points.

Dexter (24-4) will play Miller Career Academy in the quarterfinals at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Farmington Civic Center. Miller Career Academy defeated Dexter 50-33 in early December in the Farmington Tournament.

"They're big," Allen said. "The last time we played them we got beat by 17 and I feel like we didn't play that well. Hopefully coming out this next time we will give them a better game and there is no doubt in my mind we can beat them."

Dexter 15 19 15 15 -- 64

Park Hills 11 19 4 15 -- 49

DEXTER (64) -- Erika Cobb 6, Katelynn Frazier 4, Hannah Noe 14, Brittany Harris 25, Paige Patterson 2, Alison Jarrell 9, Mollie Whitehead 4. FG 24, FT 11-16, F 14. (3-pointers: Jarrell 3, Cobb 1, Noe 1. Fouled out: none)

PARK HILLS CENTRAL (49) -- Mackenzie Jones 7, Tristen Jordan 3, Briley Merritt 5, Riley Owens 20, Sydney Skaggs 14. FG 19, FT 8-11, F 15. (3-pointers: Owens 1, Jordan 1, Merritt 1. Fouled out: none)