Three Rivers won a game by 76 points for the second time in a week. The Lady Raiders forced 35 turnovers, which led to 54 points, in a 106-30 demolition of Lindenwood-Belleville JV Saturday night in the finale of The Shelter Insurance Lady Raiders Classic. "The main thing I noticed from tonight versus (Friday) was tonight when they stepped on the floor, they were more aggressive offensively and knew when they got in there they were going to be able to score," Three Rivers coach Jeff Walk said. "(Friday), I didn't feel like they had that look in their eye." Deanay Watson was the beneficiary of many of those points off turnovers. She finished with 24 points and a season-high 12 rebounds, earning her fifth double-double of the season.

"Again, it was going up and just trying to finish, trying to score," Walk said. "Baby steps along and then hopefully that'll get to where it'll be an everygame occurrence. Freshmen J'Kayla Fowler and Jordan Little were anchors on the defensive end, coming up with six steals apiece to spark a lot of transition layups. Freshman Hannah Thurmon totaled 9 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in a consistent all-around performance for the Lady Raiders. Freshman Katelyn South found her groove offensively after struggling Friday against Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, scoring 23 points on a red-hot 9-of-12 clip from the floor. "For Katelyn, when she gets her elbow underneath the basketball, it goes in," Walk said. "When she's just throwing it up there like darts, it never gets above the rim. That's just getting used to the college game and the quickness of kids running out to you." Three Rivers (8-3) was all over Lindenwood-Belleville in the wire-to-wire win. Little and Watson both got on the board less than a minute into the game when Little sank a layup with her left hand and Watson converted a steal into an easy finish on the other end. Watson scored seven of the first nine points for the Lady Raiders. The Lady Raiders' largest run was 27-4 to end the first half. During the run, sophomore Kim Shaw scored nine of the final 11 points to close the half. She started with a wide open 3-pointer on the wing, then caught an outlet pass from South, who was still on her knees after diving to get a steal, and scored an open layup. Shaw finished the run with a steal and score with under five seconds in a dominant first half for the hosts, who led 63-14 at the intermission. Shaw finished with 11 points, five assists, four rebounds and a pair of steals. The easy passes after each steal led to the Lady Raiders piling up 31 assists. The Lady Raiders' bench scored 41 points, six of which came from freshman Jenny Morey, who is on the Three Rivers softball team and was recently added to the squad for depth. Freshman Lana Reed missed the game due to drill obligations with the National Guard. The second half was almost equally as lopsided despite Three Rivers backing out of the full-court press and working on its halfcourt defense. "We set some goals at halftime that we didn't want to let them accomplish," Walk said. "That's what you do in games like this, you set goals like we don't wanna let them get so many offensive rebounds or we don't wanna let them score so many points here and things like that."

Nate Fields - Daily American Republic