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Scoring woes, defense hurt East Prairie in loss to Scott City
SCOTT CITY, Mo. — There was no defense that the East Prairie boys basketball team could do to stop Scott City from scoring on Tuesday night.
Likewise, there was also no defense that the Rams put in front of the Eagles, that allowed them to score, in their 64-30 loss at Scott City High School.
“Give credit to Scott City,” East Prairie head coach Casey Knight said. “There defense made it hard for us to score. We were able to get shots, but they were contested shots. I thought their length and their size hurt us a little bit. I feel like we’ve been battling effort and intensity and consistency all year long.
“I felt like the wind was out of our sails, and we got to learn that no matter what type of defense we’re facing; no matter what type of team we’re facing, you got to bring the effort and the intensity.”
The Eagles only scored double-figures in one quarter — the second — where they finished with 10.
Committing turnovers were also a problem for East Prairie (5-8, 2-3 Scott-Miss Conference), who finished with 20 miscues on the night.
“We’ve been pretty good defensively overall this year,” Scott City head coach Mark Dannenmueller said. “We’ve had our lapses, we’ve had our games where we haven’t played as well. We’ve got some length, and we have some athleticism, and we still gave them some open looks tonight, and they missed some shots that they probably normally make.
“Overall, you give up 30 points; you know you did quite a few things right. We liked it; we want to play a little bit better. We didn’t think we played as well as we’re capable of, but we’ve done it in spurts.”
Offensively, the Rams shot a scorching 61 percent from the floor.
Junior Camden Conner led the team with 14 points. He shot an efficient 7 of 11 from the field.
Senior Joe Panagos finished with 12 points, on 6 of 8 shooting, and reached a double-double with 10 rebounds for Scott City (10-6, 3-3 Scott-Miss Conference) as well.
“He’s a good athlete,” said Dannenmueller of Panagos. “He’s easy to coach. You don’t have to coach effort with him. You don’t have to coach teamwork with him. He does all those things, and he plays extremely hard. The ball seems to find you when you play hard, and he does.
“He’ll get an offensive rebound and put it back in because of just sheer effort.”
What looked like would be a big scoring night, didn’t turn out that way for senior Spencer Stratman.
Stratman finished with nine points, doing most of his work in the first half, but still left a mark on the contest.
At the end of the first quarter, Stratman got the ball on a dribble hand-off, took one screen, and made a jump shot from just inside the three-point line as the buzzer was about to sound.
Starting the second quarter, he started right where he left off, as he drilled his only three-point shot of the night, from the left-wing, to push the Rams out to a 20-8 lead.
“We’ve been waiting for him to kind of play to another level because we know he can,” Dannenmueller said. “We played Saturday, against Jefferson, and he had 29. He played well and hit some big shots for us. Tonight, the same way, he had a couple of open looks. It comes down to confidence with him, but that’s what you want out of your senior, especially a guard like him.”
| East Prairie | 8 | 10 | 5 | 7 | — | 30 |
| Scott City | 17 | 16 | 19 | 12 | — | 64 |
EAST PRAIRIE (30) — Zack Triplett 7, Harrison Moore 6, Jase Aycock 4, Evan Howell 4, Garrison Scott 4, Cooper Towe 3, Jack Scruggs 2. FG 13, FT 3-4, F 15. (3-pointers: Z. Triplett. Fouled out: Cade)
SCOTT CITY (64) — Camden Conner 14, Joe Panagos 12, Spencer Stratman 9, Ethan Pennington 7, Cayden Beussink 6, Gage Underwood 5, Nicolas Hillman 4, Kaden Mouser 3, Wes Wilburn 2, Griffen Moore 1, Logan Speakman 1. FG 26, FT 9-14, F 8. (3-pointers: Stratman, Mouser, Hillman. Fouled out: none)