Cubs hang on to hand Advance its first loss

ADVANCE, Mo. -- Coming off a Woodland Invitational tournament championship, the scrappy Advance Hornets gave the Bell City Cubs' offense all they could handle Tuesday in Bell City's 74-63 win.

Bell City (3-1) jumped out to a 13-point first quarter lead and looked to have the game in hand from the start. Eric Henry and Dominitrix Johnson were unstoppable early when they scored 22 of the Cubs' 27 first-quarter points.

"We lost our composure and didn't run the press offense," Advance coach Jim Hall said. "We looked like a PE team out there."

Another point off a free throw at the start of the second quarter by Henry doubled the lead for the Cubs and a 3-pointer by Henry on the ensuing possession added to the lead, but that's as far as it would get.

The Hornets battled back and closed the gap, getting the home crowd back into the game.

A Jared Ritter layup for Advance (3-1) followed by a Bell City turnover helped cut the lead to 31-26. The Cubs continued to battle a cold spell when they missed two layups on consecutive possessions but were eventually picked up by Kenyon Wright, who hit his first of four 3-pointers in the game.

Ace Cloninger hit a layup to give the Hornets the momentum going into the half, still trailing 38-32.

Ritter, who finished with 26 points, took little time igniting the home crowd by converting a three-point play early in the second half. Wright answered for the Cubs again by hitting another big three. Bell City's lead was at 10 to end the third.

The Ritter-Wright scoring battle continued into the fourth when Ritter started the quarter with a three to cut the lead to seven, only to be outdone moments later by Wright, who shot another three to bring the Cubs' lead back to 11. Henry nailed yet another three for the Cubs to match the largest lead of the game at 13.

Wright converted first with his fourth three of the night and Ritter responded with a three-pointer of his own. A free throw by Rylan Dunivan and a lay up by Ritter cut the lead to five.

Jason Bahr brought the game to three with a bucket, but Wright came up big again for the Cubs and sealed the victory with two free throws.

"The old cliche is "Sometimes a loss is a good loss,'" Hall said. "I've never considered any loss to be good unless you can got something out of it, but I felt like we really learned some things tonight."

Eric Henry led BellCity with 28 points while Johnson had 26 and Wright 14.

For Advance, Jason Bahr scored 18 points and Zach Hudson finished with 12.