Van Buren squeaks past Cardinal in early-season showdown

KEOSAUQUA ? After a mightily slow start, Cardinal ended up just a single point short from a comeback victory, and Dakota Zeitler was there to make sure of it.

In a whistle-filled game with 54 fouls called, Zeitler left her feet on the game?s final play to stuff Cardinal?s Chelsea Greiner and stave off the second-half Cardinal rally.

?It wasn?t ever her girl, but Dakota left her girl to make the block,? said Van Buren head coach Randy Smith. ?The shot was up in the air, and she left her feet to get a hand on it. It was a very athletic play and something you can?t coach ? she just did it.?

The block and subsequent final buzzer helped Van Buren to the 32-31 victory ? its second win in as many tries ? while Cardinal falls to 2-1 on the young season.

?It?s probably the most competitive rivalry we have,? Smith said. ?There?s so much emotion involved in this game and that?s why we could get up for it.?

The Warriors held Cardinal scoreless through the first quarter and for the first 11 minutes of the game before Sam Nickel?s free throws finally broke the Comet seal. At that time, Van Buren had opened up its biggest lead of the contest with a 12-0 before taking a 19-11 lead into halftime.

A Greiner three-ball was the only Cardinal field goal in the first half that featured more fouls (32) than total points (30). Even with the surplus of whistles, each team finished the game shooting less that 50 percent from the free throw stripe.

?We need to be ready right at the beginning ? we were obviously a little slow getting going,? said Cardinal head coach Ernie Sadler. ?We still didn?t even shoot 50 percent from the free throw line and that just kills you when there?s that many fouls.?

However, Lindsey Moore?s buzzer-beater to end the third quarter capped a 13-point period and had brought Cardinal all the way back to within one point at 25-24 heading into the fourth. In a 30-29 game with under a minute left, an apparent rules misunderstanding resulted in a technical foul that Makenzie Zeitler converted into two points and a three-point Warrior lead.

Nickel and Cory Campbell each hit a free throw in the final 30 seconds to pull the Comet to within one.

?When you get down 10 points in girls basketball, it takes quite a bit to recover from that,? Sadler said. ?Our kids fought back, took it to that bucket well, but we just didn?t have enough people scoring.?

Moore led Cardinal with eight points while Nickel and Chelsea Aschenbrenner each netted six. Dakota Zeitler ripped down 12 boards for Van Buren and matched Makenzie Zeitler with a team-high nine points.

?It wasn?t real pretty, but I think both teams played hard ? there was no lack of effort, and that may have been part of why it was a little ragged,? said Smith. ?We may have even been a little too aggressive at times and you could see that with the 5,000 fouls committed.?

The 2-0 Warriors will travel to Harmony Friday night while Cardinal visits Pekin Thursday.