Tigers claw way to win over Royals

NEELYVILLE — it may have been a little brisk weather-wise in Southeast Missouri Friday night, but it was a cauldron of rising temperatures inside Neelyville High School.

Amidst some hot tempers and hotter momentum swings, it was the host who had the biggest momentum at the most pivotal times to fight off a feisty challenge by visiting Twin Rivers in a 69-56 win.

The winning Tigers (11-8) were led by Casen Stephens (24 points), Grant Hale (18) and Zac Cowley (10).

“Twin Rivers is a very tough team and they’re very well coached; they throw a lot of different defenses at you, a lot of different offenses and set plays,” Neelyville head coach Brad Burdin said. “We knew it was gonna be a grind, we knew it was going to be physical because we know they like to get after it. Our goal was to match that intensity and do a little bit more and just keep pushing.”

Twin Rivers (9-9) was paced by Jagger Crismon (21 points) and Colton Hargraves (10).

“I don’t really know what happened to be honest,” Twin Rivers head coach Seth McBroom said. “They had really good energy in the beginning on their home court and they really socked us in the mouth in the first half and especially in the second quarter. We went away from the game plan so it looked like we weren’t doing much on offense and we had spent the last two days working on zone cutting and flashing principles.

“In a wild atmosphere like this sometimes you just lose your focus.”

The Tigers had the best of the early action as two triples and a couple strong attacks at the rim led to an 11-3 lead five minutes into the contest.

The Royals got going offensively and were able to battle back to within 14-10 after a quarter of play.

The game remained a back-and-forth contest for the first four minutes of the second quarter, until Neelyville got a little bit of mojo under its sails and were able to a pull away for a solid 35-21 halftime advantage.

Twin came out looking sharp out of the break as Crismon drilled consecutive treys and two charity tosses to pull the Royals to within 35-29 two minutes after halftime.

Then a slick paddle pass by Hargraves on a hot potato ball to Hunter Huddleston down five and a layup by Tucker Hequembourg pulled the visitors to within 38-35 with just south of four minutes left in the third quarter.

Neelyville responded to this newest threat with a 6-0 run that helped the Tigers up the advantage to 46-38 heading into the final quarter.

The fourth quarter did no favors for sportsmanship on one occasion and wasn’t the best advert for officiating as both coaches were livid on some dubious calls or non whistles and in the middle of all of it Neelyville crept back up to a 55-43 lead with 5:45 to go.

Ball game.

Hale was pleased with his team’s performance after a tough loss Tuesday, against a very strong Greenville program.

“I feel that we kept it together all the way through,” Hale said. “We are keeping ourselves in check and we’re always talking to each other and keeping us calm.

“We were ready for this game. Greenville outhustled us. We just have to keep hustling and keep our pedal to the metal.”

Burdin wouldn’t disagree with his junior.

“Something that has been emphasized this year is that we don’t let the losses affect us, and we try to look at the bigger picture,” Burdin said. “It is what did we do wrong and fix it the next day. I am proud that they can do that. A big lost to Greenville can turn a season, but it looks like they learned from it.”