3RC women return to action with blowout victory

The big story may be the Three Rivers women’s basketball team actually trailed for about 45 seconds in this game.

The No. 17 Lady Raiders (12-1) opened up with a return to action after a long holiday break with a 110-40 drubbing over visiting Lincoln Trail Wednesday night at the Libla Family Sports Complex.

Leading the way for the Lady Raiders were Maiya Bergdorf (22 points, five rebounds, four assists), Da’Kariya Jackson (20 points, six assists), Amiya Johnson (19 points, five steals) and Niaisya Ervin and Tameia Shaw (12 points apiece).

Shaw returned to action after a year-plus off the court following injury and hit the shot that put her squad over the three-figure mark.

The only thing the Three Rivers ladies didn’t provide were free tacos for the fans for hitting the century mark.

“We’ve been off for almost a month and honestly we came out with a bang knowing this was a game where we had to get in shape,” Bergdorf said. “We know game shape is different and knew we had to give it our all and do what we do best. We worked in practice and had a hard couple days in the beginning.

“When we got more in shape, we got better and better and were back to playing our brand of basketball. This was a test to see our hard work in practice will pay off - and especially Saturday as well.”

It was a nice warmup before the big event 1 p.m. Saturday at No. 14 Wabash Valley CC when the two clash on ESPN+. Three Rivers won the first game involving the two in a 91-79 victory played in Poplar Bluff and on the season’s opening weekend in November.

“I think the most important thing is they’ve been here since the 26th and we’ve done two-a-days six or seven times,” Three Rivers head coach Alex Wiggs said. “They’ve been physically in good shape, but mentally they’ve been a little exhausted. We came out after halftime and had about three minutes where we weren’t locked in, but for 37 minutes we were mentally engaged in the game and I can’t complain about that at all.

“It’s hard when you have a big game on Saturday to not look ahead. That was the biggest thing - to focus on the task at hand. The last time we played Lincoln Trail we won by 75 so it’s one of those you can easily (slack). Today showed a lot of maturity as a team. Our main focus was ourselves.”

The first half saw the Lady Raiders lead 24-6 after the first quarter behind a nice array of outside shooting and the occasional blitz of the Lincoln Trail rim.

Crazy to think Lincoln Trail scored the first basket to hold the first lead of the game.

The momentum continued in even bigger measure with a 39-12 run over the next 10 minutes as Three Rivers led 63-18 at the break.

The Lady Raiders shot 50 percent from the field but rode a defense combined with unsure ballhandling by Lincoln Trail to force 30 turnovers from the beleaguered visitors from the land of Lincoln.

The Lady Raiders finished its two-game season sweep of Lincoln Trail by a combined 214-69 score. Three Rivers forced 41 turnovers for the game.

Now it’s time to prepare for the ESPN cameras.

NOTE: Wiggs confirmed that sophomore guard Jenna McMillen has left the program.