By Anvil Welch
awelch@joplinglobe.com
A victory-starved Joplin High School girls basketball team was too much for young Rogers Heritage on Saturday.
The Eagles, snapping a six-game slide, wound up the regular season with a 63-34 win in Kaminsky Gymnasium.
The nonconference contest, originally scheduled Dec. 15 at Rogers, had been reset and postponed again because of inclement weather.
Joplin (9-15) hadn’t won since beating Carl Junction 67-59 on Jan. 31 for consolation honors in the Nevada Tournament.
First-year Heritage, which belongs to Class 7A in Arkansas, fell to 2-22.
Kevin Ramey, an assistant for 10 years at Rogers, guides the War Eagles. He said the school has some 1,600 students in grades 9-11 but the ninth-graders can’t play varsity.
Joplin opened with a 10-3 advantage — four different players scored — within four minutes. Ramey called a third timeout at 3:06 before the Eagles responded with a trey by Jessie McMullen and a follow by Emilee Dailey to make it 15-3.
Joplin led 17-6 after one quarter and 30-19 at the half before pulling away in the second half. Nine of the 10 players utilized by Joplin coach Ben Glasgow wound up scoring.
Said Glasgow: “The last four days have been fantastic for our team. We’ve had two good games — even though we lost to West Plains on Thursday — and we’ve had two good practices.”
The Eagles will be idle today, Glasgow said, before preparing to challenge third-seeded Carthage at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday in the first round of the Class 5 District 12 Tournament at Willard.
May Lee, who was rewarded handsomely for running the floor, scored 23 points to pace Joplin. The 5-foot-6 junior had 15 points in the second half.
“Several of our players had good vision in getting the ball to May Lee,” Glasgow said.
“I thought Jesse McMullen (a 5-7 sophomore) controlled things on both ends of the floor,” Glasgow said. “Our post players did a good job of offensive rebounding. Emilee Dailey was great.”
Dailey, a 6-0 junior, also had 10 points. McMullen nailed two treys and Jessica Hill, a 5-10 senior, added eight points.
Heritage received 10 points from 5-8 sophomore Maddie Weller. Hannah Hickman, a 5-7 junior, sank three 3s from the corner.
