The Three Rivers College women's basketball team used a pair of strong starts to each half and got a strong night on the offensive end to punch its ticket to a familiar place — the Region XVI championship game.
The second-seeded Lady Raiders will make their seventh trip to the region finals in the last eight seasons after they downed the No. 3 Mineral Area College Lady Cardinals 75-47 in a Region XVI semifinal contest at the Libla Family Sports Complex.
As a team, Three Rivers (25-5) shot 55% from the field (32-for-58), including an 8-for-11 performance from sophomore guard Da'Naya Ross.
"I thought we were really good offensively," Three Rivers coach Alex Wiggs said. "We moved the ball really well. We had some moments where we turned it over … but offensively, I thought we were really, really good all night and I'm really proud of the girls."
The Lady Raiders came out of the gate quick Friday, taking a 10-0 lead on Samyah Jordan's basket with 6:02 left in the first period as they quickly set the tempo in Tuesday's contest.
MAC (16-13) did not give up, cutting the lead to 35-28 on a Mariah Dallas 3-pointer with 95 seconds left in the first half as the Lady Cardinals trailed 37-30 at the intermission.
However, Three Rivers turned it up a notch after the break, scoring the first six points of the second half to push its lead into double figures the rest of the way. Jordan's layup with 4:59 left in the third period capped a 12-2 run and staked TRC to a 49-32 lead.
The Lady Raiders pushed the lead past 20 points when Ytaly Lewis drained a 3-pointer in front of her team's bench with 8:53 to go in the contest to push the lead to 59-38.
Overall, Three Rivers limited the Lady Cardinals to just 17 points after the intermission.
"I thought the second half, we did a great job of locking in and doing a good job of guarding their second screen, or second cuts and third cuts," Wiggs said. "So I'm really proud of our defensive effort, especially there the second half."
Another positive for the Lady Raiders was that they committed just three turnovers after halftime as they turned a seven-point lead at the break into a 28-point triumph.
"Whenever you only have three turnovers in the second half, you prevent their transition points or fastbreak points, points off turnovers and all that stuff," Wiggs said. "(We did a) really good job of taking care of the ball, of valuing the ball and doing that stuff."
Ross paced Three Rivers with 18 points, while Jordan added 17, Kiera Neal had 15 and Caitlin Lord finished with 10.
"That's what those four need to do," Wiggs said. "Three of those four are sophomores and the other is a point guard. That's what those players do this time of year — then the addition of Amelia tonight, that's pretty special."
Lord also had eight rebounds, while Neal added seven rebounds and five steals to go with three blocked shots and Lewis finished with six points. Jordan had eight assists, while Ross had four steals, Londyn Harper added three steals and Tristan Spearman had a pair of steals off the bench.
Dallas paced MAC with 15 points, while Casey Teague added eight and P.J. Reutzel finished with seven.
The Lady Raiders will travel to Sedalia to take on top-seeded State Fair at 6 p.m. Friday evening. The Lady Roadrunners dispatched No. 4 Crowder 98-83 in Tuesday's other semifinal contest.
"We've got to show up and compete," Wiggs said. "It's going to be a battle. We know it's going to be tough, (so) we've got to make sure that we're mentally prepared and that we're ready to go to battle."
Mike Buhler - Daily American Republic