On to the final eight: Lady Redbirds beat Neelyville, will face New Haven Saturday

SIKESTON — For all intents and purposes both Ozark Foothills Conference rivals — the East Carter Lady Redbirds and the Neelyville Lady Tigers — are overall young teams finding their groove at the right time — playoff basketball time.

So, when both met for the third time this season at Sikeston High School in a Class 2 sectional with a chance to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinal in Farmington, they were obviously just happy to be here, right?

Think again.

East Carter used a big burst in both the second and third quarters to keep Neelyville on the back foot to earn a 46-38 win. The Lady Redbirds will get at least one more game to play at noon Saturday at the Farmington Civic Center in a quarterfinal matchup against New Haven, who defeated St. Vincent in another sectional Tuesday.

It will be East Carter’s first quarterfinal since 1998

East Carter (22-6) was led by another sizzling performance by Brooklyn Kearbey with 26 points, while Breanna Dohleman added nine in the win.

“At this point of the season you have to do what you have to do and we are doing it regardless of the level of play,“ East Carter coach Angela Rogers said. “(Neelyville) did the job down (in the post) and we didn’t do a good enough job trying to control the tempo. Our intensity on defense could’ve been better but we did what we were supposed to and we won.

“Changing the mindset of girls who are not used to winning is hard and that’s really the biggest thing. Now we are going to do what we’re going to do and buckle down and it’s exciting. We are not rolling over anymore.”

Neelyville (19-9) was led by Parker Ernst and Brooke Griffin with nine points each, while Jade Crosswhite had seven.

“We just couldn’t score and we didn’t attack the basket when we needed to,” Neelyville coach Becky Hale said. “We missed a couple of blackouts, and we didn’t do enough to not get beat. It’s a low scoring game in so if you’re missing, shut down low and not blocking out and rebounding, it’s tough to win.

“We are definitely trying to get back to where we were, and being dominant. That’s what I told the seniors, that they were here at the end of the run, and getting a spec, and they never wavered. I’m very proud of them.“

Neelyville started off hot on an unusually warm winter day hitting four of its first five shots — and when Ernst completed an and-one, it was 10-3 Lady Tigers just a little over two minutes into the game.

However, back-to-back 3-pointers by Dohleman and Kearbey quickly brought East Carter back to within one point. Then consecutive makes by Crowley pushed the Lady Redbirds into a 13-10 lead.

The first quarter ended with the Lady Redbirds up 15-12.

Both offenses really struggled to keep sizzling in the second quarter, but it was East Carter’s defense that was headline, holding Neelyville to six points over last 13-plus minutes of the opening half to lead 21-16 at halftime.

A Kearbey triple and a Dohleman follow-up out of the intermission immediately gave East Carter its biggest lead to date, 26-16.

However Neelyville wouldn’t be Neelyville if they didn’t do Neelyville things — and those are usually really good. A 6-0 run capped by a Dobbins runner pulled the Lady Tigers within 26-22 about halfway through the third quarter.

Kearbey answered with four straight points over the next minute and East Carter had breathing room again at 30-22. But, Lady Tiger Brooke Griffin responded with four points of her own and once again Neelyville was back within two possessions at 30-26.

Neelyville left the third quarter feeling pretty good about things, trailing 31-29.

After forcing a turnover, the Lady Tigers tied the game in the early seconds of the final quarter on a Griffin layup off a sweet Jade Crosswhite pass to knot things at 31-all.

The one thing Neelyville did defensively that Ellington couldn’t in the previous round against East Carter was limit the number of post offensive advantages by the Lady Redbirds — and thus interior scoring didn’t come on sale this night for East Carter.

Kearbey tried to compensate for it with a personal five-point run of her own and East Carter was up 39-33 with four minutes to go.

A few missed free throws didn’t help East Carter’s cause, so Neelyville stayed in the hunt as the contest had less than three minutes to go.

Kearbey again cleaned that up with two free tosses to elevate the Lady Redbirds to a 43-35 lead with 1:50 to go.

Dohleman admitted that the inside game for East Carter was definitely lacking, but that was mostly due to the exemplary defensive efforts inside by the Neelyville post players.

“Them having another big girl really helped them out against us because Ellington didn’t have one (on Saturday),” Dohleman said. “It was hard for us to push the ball inside. I am glad we are finding ways to win but it’s not my preferred way to do it. I would like to see us commit less turnovers and make better passes.

“We got to find a way to get around it and figure out what we need to do. We just have to keep making the adjustments and do what we have to do.”