Panther girls bruise Bulldogs

MT. PLEASANT - A big first half lead and some clutch shots in the fourth quarter pushed the Mt. Pleasant girls basketball team past Ottumwa in a nonconference home game on Tuesday night. The Panthers won their first home game of the season, beating the Bulldogs 37-25.

It was Ottumwa's first game of the year, and the Panthers made the Bulldogs look rusty early with a full-court press that had Ottumwa in fits. The Panthers suffocated the Bulldogs in the first half and kept their opponents in single digits, leading 11-4 after one quarter and 19-6 at halftime.

'We just put that in yesterday to see how we'd do,” said Mt. Pleasant head coach Curt Watson. 'We thought we'd try to take them by surprise, and it actually worked pretty well.”

The Bulldogs didn't go away. Ottumwa clawed back to reduce the lead to single-digits in the third quarter, cutting the deficit to 25-16 before the period ended. They kept fighting in the fourth and eventually cut the lead down to five.

Leading 25-20, Mt. Pleasant's Emma Rugg secured her first three points of the game on a 3-point play. The Bulldogs answered with a 3-pointer on the other end to cut the Panther lead back to five, at 28-23, but Kenna Lamm banked in a 3-pointer and Andrea Lopreato followed with a long ball of her own to stretch the lead back to double-digits, at 34-23. The Bulldogs were never within reach beyond that point.

'That kind of turned it around right there for us,” Coach Watson said. 'Sometimes you have to take the bank and be happy with it.”

Lopreato had 12 points and 12 rebounds to lead Mt. Pleasant. Lamm and Tristian Shull had eight points each. Emma Huckabone scored four. Rugg finished with two, and both Kate Schimmelpfennig and Ava Lowery had one.

Mt. Pleasant is now 2-2 overall. The Panthers will look to move to 2-0 in the Southeast Conference when they host Keokuk on Friday night.

The Panther boys played at Ottumwa on Tuesday night and won 58-47. Look for the story on that game and scores from around the Union area in tomorrow's paper.