Scott City girls basketball team falls in seventh-place game of Holiday Classic

Aleah Little and Hayli Chapman combined for 27 points as the Sikeston girls won their first game of the season, 47-26 over Scott City in the seventh-place game of the Kelso Supply Holiday Classic Saturday at the Show Me Center.

Little, a senior forward, had 14 points for the Bulldogs (1-6) and led a strong rebounding effort, while Chapman, a freshman guard, added 13 points, including a pair of 3-pointers.

The Bulldogs scored the first 11 points of the game in building a 25-17 halftime lead, then opened the second half with a 12-0 run to put the game away.

"I thought offensively we crashed the boards really hard the second half," Sikeston coach Matt Schonhoff said. "Defensively, we went out and really closed hard on shooters. ... We were able to get rebounds and some easy layups.

"I thought as a whole and as a team we played extremely well and very, very hard. Offensively, in our sets, we're still not as good as we need to be, but we made shots when we needed to."

The Bulldogs had 14 offensive rebounds in the first half -- seven in each quarter -- to keep the pressure on the Rams.

"We work on it every day in practice," Little said. "It's nice to win one, especially when it's your senior year."

Sikeston fell to Scott City 39-33 back on Dec. 3 and the Bulldogs were determined to make amends.

"The last couple of games we were doing our own things as individuals," sophomore point guard Michala Nichols said. "Today we realized we had to be a team, and when we're being a team, we can get more wins."

The Rams were also done in by 19 turnovers and poor shooting -- they were just 8 of 50 for the game, including 1 of 14 in the first quarter.

"I think [rebounding] was the biggest factor in the game," Scott City coach Ricky Keller said. "That and the silly turnovers from being tired. I think once we got winded we started making effortless errors. We didn't box out -- that's one of the effortless errors -- and careless passes over the top of them. That was a huge difference."

Natalie Woods topped the Rams (1-9) with eight points.

Sikeston 11 14 12 10 -- 47

Scott City 4 13 3 6 -- 26

SIKESTON (47) -- Hayli Chapman 13, Aleah Little 14, Michala Nichols 8, Aerionna Beard 4, Yolanda Johnson 6, Alana Basham 2. FG: 19, FT: 7/16, F: 19. (3-pointers: Chapman 2. Fouled out: none).

SCOTT CITY (26) -- Shea Martin 3, Macy Hall 2, Natalie Woods 8, Alexis Spriggs 3, Alicia Kern 5, Kay Mosely 2, Tana Tetley 1. FG: 8, FT: 10-22, F: 16. (3-pointers: none. Fouled out: none.)