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Mt. Pleasant suffers back-to-back defeats in home stand against Benton
Panthers boys and girls cant keep pace with Bobcats in Monday night showdown
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MT. PLEASANT — Mt. Pleasant’s Monday night non-conference matchup with Benton didn’t play to the Panthers’ favor in both the boys and girls’ contest.
The Bobcats completed a nightly sweep of the Panthers with the girls falling 48-27 and the boys 65-29.
Mt. Pleasant found itself down early against Benton in the girls’ game as the Bobcats built a 6-0 lead through the first three and a half minutes.
It wasn’t until a pair of free throws from Kynlee White got the Panthers on the board. Mt. Pleasant scored just one more point from the stripe the rest of the quarter.
The Bobcat’s lead sat at 11-3 after one. Mt. Pleasant could never get back into it.
In the second, Benton extended its lead as large as 19-3 before the Panthers first bucket of the frame. Once again, Mt. Pleasant struggled to find points as Benton kept the Panthers scoreless through another three and a half minute span.
Kiyah Sanders connected on two from the foul line to opening the second quarter scoring for Mt. Pleasant.
Mt. Pleasant was held to just eight points in the second. That matched the Panthers highest total of any quarter on the evening as they never eclipsed single digits.
Meanwhile, Benton put up its highest point total of any quarter in the second, scoring 17 points.
At the half, the Bobcats held onto an 28-11 lead.
Through the third quarter, the Panthers were outscored 14-8, putting them down 42-19 heading into the fourth.
Mt. Pleasant went on to edge Benton in the fourth 8-6, but the deficit was too great.
Addison Clark scored a team-high eight points for the Panthers.
With the loss, Mt. Pleasant drops to 1-6 on the season. The Panthers will take on Washington in a Southeast Conference matchup on Friday.
In the boys’ contest, the Panthers couldn’t keep up with some stellar outside shooting by the Bobcats.
Benton dropped in its quarter high points in the first period, scoring 18 in large part thanks to Carson Pickering who scorch the Mt. Pleasant with eight threes on the night.
Freshman Ryan Helling paced the Panthers with their highest quarter total of the matchup, but they still found themselves down eight, 18-10, after the opening eight minutes.
Helling would score a team-high eight points in the game.
From then on out, the Panthers struggles continued as they never scored more than seven points in each of the final three quarters.
On the contrary, the Bobcats stayed red-hot. Benton scored 17 each in the next two quarters to put itself up 35-17 at the half and 52-23 after three.
The Panthers scored seven in the second and six each in the third and fourth, but it wasn’t enough to get on top of the Bobcats. Mt. Pleasant got some great minutes out of Grayson Walker, who scored all six points in the third.
Over half of the Bobcats points came off the three ball as they shot a whopping 60% from deep, while connecting on 12. In total, Benton shot 53.7% from the field.
Mt. Pleasant drops to 0-5 on the season and will take on Washington on Friday.
