With the Mineral Area coaches watching, the Lady Raiders put together a Jekyll and Hyde performance in their final tuneup before hosting the Lady Cardinals in Saturday's Region XVI opener at the Bess Activity Center. Ultimately, Three Rivers College found enough of the good to counter the bad in their first home game since Dec. 6 and beat Arkansas State-Mid South 80-64 at the Bess Activity Center and extend their winning streak to 12 games. "We had about 7-8 minutes in that first half that looked really, really good. And we had about the same amount of time that looked really, really bad," Three Rivers coach Jeff Walk said.
The Lady Raiders (14-2) put together an 18-2 run in the first 4 minutes of the second quarter to take their biggest lead of the game, 21 points. The run featured a 3 by Olivia Crane, and was capped by consecutive threepoint plays from DeNayia Holmes and Markeia Porter. During the burst, Three Rivers didn't go more than 40 seconds between buckets. The strong shooting helped the Lady Raiders to 56 percent shooting in the first half. They also shot 49 percent overall, their best mark since playing Missouri Baptist JV on Dec. 2. Three Rivers has shot better than 50 percent twice this season, against Lindenwood-Belleville JV and Malcolm X. Ge'Naisha Robinson was 10 for 15 shooting and led Three Rivers with 21 points. Michael Everhart was 7 for 11, including 4 for 5 on 3-pointers, and had 19 points.
The streaks of poor play, the Mr. Hyde portion of the game, had Walk surprised by the strong shooting percentages on the postgame box score. "Yeah, that one was frustrating. We know we can play better, we know we can do better, but at the end of the day, it boils down to one thing. You win or you lose," Walk said. Less than 4 minutes after the 18-2 run concluded, Mid-South (6-7) was back within 10 points and cut it to seven when Alesha Penister drained a 3 before the halftime buzzer. Three Rivers never trailed in the game, but was up just five points with 8 minutes to play in the fourth quarter. It was then that the Lady Raiders turned back into Dr. Jekyll and closed with an 18-7 run and held Mid-South to 30 percent shooting overall.
The Lady Raiders went 6 for 8 (75 percent) on free throws in the fourth quarter and finished 14 for 21 (67 percent) overall. "This is college basketball. They aren't going to quit when they get down 20," Walk said. "We made our free throws when we've got to start making them at the end. We stopped turning the ball over and finished around the basket." Mid-South had six active players and nearly finished with four on the court after one player fouled out and two others finished with four fouls each. All six Mid-South players played more minutes than any of the 10 active Lady Raiders. Jalisa Smith had a personal best 17 rebounds for Three Rivers. It was the first time this season that she's grabbed double-digit boards and the third time as a Lady Raider. She also had five blocks and five offensive rebounds to lead the team. Joya Smith added 10 rebounds.
In style with the game, the trio of Lady Raider post players — the Smith sisters and Porter — were responsible for 13 of the team's 25 turnovers. Mid-South was effective at getting the ball out of the point guard's hands and then forcing turnovers by those who don't handle the ball as much. "When your post players have 13 turnovers, you can't have that because they don't have the ball in their hands that much," Walk said. Three Rivers was minus-4 on points off turnovers and even on secondchance points with the region schedule starting Saturday. "The sophomores kind of know what to expect," said Walk of Saturday's Region XVI opener at 5 p.m. against Mineral Area. "Hopefully, it will not be a deer in the headlights look out of the freshmen. Everybody says it is a big game, and it is, but in the big picture of things it is one of 10."