Scott City boys adjust, clobber Delta late in rapid Scott-Mississippi firefight

Scott City boys basketball braved the windy weather and hosted Delta on Tuesday night for an important Scott-Mississippi Conference clash. The hosts came away with an 86-62 victory to better their conference record and extend their winning streak to three.

After Delta took a couple of leads early in the first half, including a slim edge after a frame, the Rams tooled with their approach to the Delta offense and found immediate success.

“We didn't come out to guard, the whole first half,” Rams coach Mark Dannenmueller said. “We let it get helter-skelter, which is what Delta is pretty good at. They’ve got some really good offensive players.

“We figured we were gonna get what we wanted offensively, but we needed to guard and we needed to have energy. Our guys came out in the second half and guarded really, really well. It wasn't anything we did – our kids just came out and did it.”

Scott City grabbed a quick 2-point lead, but Delta stole all momentum from there. Multiple big scoring runs saw the Bobcats take a 13-5 lead midway through the first period, but Scott City fought right back into a 14-13 lead.

Delta’s fight didn’t stop there, pushing forward into a 23-22 lead going into the second quarter. However, the Rams slowly began to figure out the Bobcats’ high-tempo offense and full-court inbound passes and made a big turnaround before the half.

Pushing hard to the basket and getting a couple of big 3-pointers to drop, the Rams ended the first half with a 45-40 lead after slowing down the game late in the quarter.

Putting up such an impressive offensive output through the first 11 minutes of the game, Delta appeared to have the guns to compete with Scott City but tailed off late in the second half to fall into an inevitably inescapable hole.

“It all started with defensive rebounding,” Bobcats coach Toby Heeb said. “We were doing a good job on the boards, holding them to one shot, which let us get out and get some fastbreaks. We wanted to play that way.

“First half, I thought we did a good job of that. But then in the second half, we came out a little more flat and they got on the offensive boards against us. Once they started making shots, it made it harder for us to run and then we got a little stagnant in our half-court offense.”

Scott City made a quick start to the second half, opening up with a couple of quick buckets while Delta couldn’t keep the pace. With 3:31 left in the third quarter, Scott City’s lead had run up to 60-44, forcing a timeout from Heeb.

The Rams ended the third quarter still on their big run, holding a 20-point lead going into the fourth quarter at 69-49 after dropping in a handful of contested shots and getting the Bobcats into foul trouble on the interior.

With the running clock making an appearance early on in the final frame, the clock quickly ran out on Delta. After an early scoring barrage from the Bobcats, the Rams put the clamps on to secure an 86-62 victory on home court.

Scott City pushed its way to the dub with a highly-effective balanced scoring effort. Jackson Gloth led the Rams with 17 points, with Nathan Ham (15), Kaden Lowery (14) and Kalen Conner (12) all chipping in with big double-digit scoring games.

The unbelievable efforts of Paxton Hurnbuckle kept the visitings ‘Cats in the ballgame early. He scored a game-high 23 points for Delta, including a whopping 13 points in the first quarter alone. Ryan Jeffries (14) and Bryce Cox (11) both had a heavy impact on the scoring in the loss as well.

With three solid wins exiting the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament, the Rams face one of their biggest tests of the season with a 1-loss Puxico team on Friday night.

But with an impressive showing against the high-powered Delta Bobcats, it’s starting to look up and up for the 11-3 Scott City Rams entering a critical fixture against one of the bootheel’s finest.

“Puxico is really, really good,” Dannenmueller said. “They're well-coached. We've got some guys that are hurt, so we're trying to work through that and put some guys in new places. It's not an excuse, it just is what it is.

“We're gonna have to have everybody on Friday, because they're that good. We're excited because they're a good team, and we want to play good teams. We're gonna come out and try to play as well as we can. Hopefully we'll get lucky and they'll miss a few shots.”

__SCOTT CITY 86, DELTA 62__

Delta 23 17 9 13 — 62

Scott City 22 23 24 17 — 86

Scott City (86) — Jackson Gloth 17, Nathan Ham 15, Kaden Lowery 14, Kaden Conner 12, Brenden Beussink 8, Mark Panagos 8, Jaylen Rulo 8, Max Snider 2. FG: 34. (3-pointers: Ham 3, Beussink 1, Lowery 1)

Delta (62) — Paxton Hurnbuckle 23, Ryan Jeffries 14, Bryce Cox 11, Casey Crowden 4, Cohen Palmer 4, Rylin Huffman 3, Jason Nanney 3. FG: 25. (3-pointers: Hurnbuckle 1, Nanney 1)