Meadow Heights' dynamic duo dominates Delta

Led by the dynamic duo of Koby Cook and Will Green, the Meadow Heights Panthers snapped a three-game losing streak in a big way by defeating Delta. 93-38 on Monday in Delta.

As the Panthers’ only two seniors, Cook and Green play like Batman and Robin. Cook, the big bruiser, pulverized the paint to the tune of a game-high 21 points, all in the third quarter. Meanwhile, Green attacks from afar, scoring all 18 points from behind the three-point line, all during the first half as well.

The two seniors complement each other like thunder and lightning.

“Tonight was pretty fun,” Green said. “I felt like everything was going my way, every shot was going in, and if it didn’t, Koby is getting the rebound. He is putting it up like he always did, and if I was getting guarded, Koby is open. He’s hitting the shot every time.”

“This [game] is by far the best,” Cook said. “I couldn’t do it without him.”

Green has long been relied on to take the open shot from on top of the key. An argument can be made that he is one of the best outside shooters in Class 2.

“I was always short,” Green said, “so it kind of just came to me naturally. I knew I wasn’t gonna be inside a lot, so I gotta do something that I knew I could do well to get me a score.”

Green and Cook have played alongside each other since they were in the fourth grade. Their bond was built on the court and their desire to practice together grew when they reached the varsity team as sophomores.

“We played high school ball together for three years now from sophomore year,” Green said. “He started with me and I guess the bonds just grew. Sometimes Koby would call me and be like, ‘Hey, let’s go practice together’ and we’d get together and we would work together on post moves, shooting, and all that.”

Koby started to Cook early with eight points to push the Panthers to a 22-7 first-quarter lead. Behind Green’s 12 points, the Panthers scored 30 points in the second quarter to stretch the lead to 52-17 at halftime.

With Green resting on the bench, Koby and Kaden Cook combined to score 13 of the Panthers' 26 third-quarter points.

Once it was time to send the rest of the reserves in Jayden Burr shined with 10 of his 16 points in the final period.

Braeden Hays also scored 13 points for the Panthers.

Carter Scherer led the Bobcats with 13 points on senior night. Isaiah Berry and Coleton Deckard each scored six points. The rest of Delta's scoring came from Ryan Jeffries (5), Austin Keys (4) Casey Crowden (2), and Trevor Stoffregen (2).

Delta travels to East Prairie on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Meadow Heights travels to Zalma on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. Between Zalma and Leopold, the Panthers (8-9) have a chance to enter the MVC Tournament above .500.

It's been a long road for the senior duo, who felt as early as the second game of the season that they could lead the team.

"At the beginning of the year, we struggled a little bit on man-to-man," Green said, "but as the year went on, we've been practicing, and our man-to-man got a lot better. Advance had been a pretty good game we just started doing man and we hope to make it a lot better by the districts but we've been improving a lot since the beginning of the season."

Meanwhile, Cook just wishes the season lasted longer.

“I really don't want [districts] to come," Cook said. "I just don't want the season to be over.“