PARK HILLS, Missouri — Alex Wiggs has said his biggest concern is when his Three Rivers women's basketball team struggles to score, it sometimes hampers its defensive prowess.
Well, it can be said that despite some pretty bad offensive struggles Wednesday night at Mineral Area College Wednesday night, the defense did more than enough to maintain the Lady Raiders ability to win a pivotal Region XVI contest, 53-49.
No. 19 Three Rivers (19-3, 9-2 Region XVI) secured a tiebreaker advantage over MAC with two wins over the Lady Cardinals (18-9, 8-4) and are still in the hunt for the Region XVI title.
Three Rivers was led by Da'Kariya Jackson (11 points), Amiya Johnson (10), and Maiya Bergdorf (nine) as it overcame 28 percent shooting. The defense forced 25 MAC turnovers.
"Our biggest thing was that 'you aren't scoring, you've got to get stops, one possession at a time and give ourselves a chance,'" Wiggs said. "Our girls did that tonight and gave us a chance to win."
It took over four minutes for either team to score and then Mineral Area got two free throws to break the ice.
A Jackson basket gave Three Rivers the early lead 3-2 with the first hoop of the game about a minute later.
Johnson drilled a triple at 2:25 of the first quarter to push TRC up into an 8-2 lead.
Three Rivers led 8-7 after a horribly unattractive first quarter of offense but MAC had built some momentum.
"It was (ugly) both ways and a lot of is both teams are good teams defensively," Wiggs said. "A lot of it came from that. Whenever one turned it over, the other turned it over the next possession. That's what happens when two teams battle it out and compete."
The Lady Cardinals scored the first seven points of the second quarter, six of them on two 3-pointers, and Three Rivers was held scoreless for the first four-plus minutes forcing Wiggs to call timeout.
An Niaisya Ervin jumper ended a 15-0 run by MAC to pull the Lady Raiders to within 17-10 with less than five minutes before halftime.
Jackson hit a 3 late to pull her squad within 23-19 and they settled for that deficit as halftime called.
The third quarter was a seesaw of momentum as TRC pulled to within 23-22 early after the break and MAC ran off a 9-2 run to go back up 32-24. However, the Lady Raiders scored five straight points, and just like that they trailed 32-29 with six minutes remaining.
Then Tameia Shaw hit a three moments later after another Lady Raiders bucket and suddenly the Three Rivers women led 34-32.
Three Rivers led 37-35 after three quarters.
Defense continued to make the difference as it assisted in a little bump midway through the final quarter and they went up 47-42 just before the 5-minute mark.
The lead continued to get puffier for the Lady Raiders but MAC rallied to within three points with under a minute to go and two missed free throws gave the Lady Cardinals the ball with 30 seconds to go and down a possession.
MAC had four cracks at a score as Three Rivers couldn't secure a rebound until 6.5 seconds left and Ari Winston finally collected a pivotal carom.
"The positive on that was we were making them take contested threes," Wiggs said. "The negative was we just needed one rebound and somebody to go chase the dang thing down.
"Anytime we can get a road team against a good team is a good thing. They are a very tough and tested team."
Alan Dale - Daily American Republic