The Washington Demon girls’ basketball team saw a double-digit lead disappear and dropped their first conference game of the season in the process of a 50-43 home defeat at the hands of Mount Pleasant last night. Washington raced out to a 17-7 lead after one quarter and was up by as much as 13 points thanks to some strong three-point shooting. But Mount Pleasant would rally to tie the game at 24 going into halftime, and the Panthers dominated the rest of the game, thanks largely to a huge 26-point outburst from senior Andrea Lopreato. Demons head coach Shannon Rugg told KCII Sports after the loss that it was never going to be easy to keep Mount Pleasant in check.
“They’re a veteran team,” Rugg said. “They’ve got two seniors that have led them and been playing for basically four years for them, so they’ve been through all the wars. The Lopreato girl, she’s a good basketball player. She handles herself well on the floor, and she just kind of has a calming influence on them on the floor. They created some turnovers on us and got some layups. We started getting a little timid with the ball, and that created more turnovers.”
Freshman Leighton Messinger finished with 12 points scored and Adalyn Long added 11, but it was not enough to keep the Demons from falling to 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the Southeast Conference. The Washington boys also fell to Mount Pleasant 62-49 last night. Demons head coach Collin Stark told KCII Sports too many things didn’t go his team’s way down the stretch.
“As we were going, right at the very beginning of that fourth quarter,” Stark said, “we were down one going into it and we hit a corner three, so we actually got up two at that point. And then, it was just kind of back and forth, and I think the turning point was us getting into foul trouble, and then we just couldn’t quite be as aggressive on the defensive end. If we could have just had a few more fouls with our starters, I think that was the big change, and then [we] just couldn’t quite get our passes through that 2-3 zone [defense] when they switched. I thought we were getting guys open, it was just getting the ball to them.”
Washington falls to 3-3 overall and 2-1 in league play. Both the Demon boys and girls are in action today taking on Macon, Missouri as part of the first Southeast Conference-Clarence Cannon Conference Rivalry Series.