For the five veteran members of the Boonville Lady Pirates basketball team, Monday night’s game against the Jefferson City Lady Jays was the last chance to play in front of their home crowd at the Windsor gym.
Although the Lady Pirates would have to play Class 5 Jeff City, the goal remained the same: win the game and prevent Missouri signee Hannah Linthacum from scoring.
Unfortunately for Boonville, they didn’t as the Lady Jays prevailed 51-27 behind the shot from Linthacum, who finished with a game-high 18 points.
Nonetheless, Boonville women’s basketball coach Jared Runyon said he was proud of the seniors and to see them chase him down the court. “I really appreciated all of his hard work, especially in practice,” Runyon said. “They are good guys off the pitch and it was a great moment for me to see them rise to the occasion and possibly earn some minutes in the future. All things considered, I think the first quarter was good for us. I thought we came out of the first quarter ready to roll. I thought we were running our game pretty well and had them shoot some tough shots. We just didn’t have much of a consistent offense. I think we got a 3-pointer in the first quarter, but we just weren’t shooting very well. I think we settled early in the second half and were a little bit better in terms of movement, but then we started to turn the ball around. That’s been a really big key for us in the last two weeks or so. We’ve talked about how we’re spinning the basketball too much. Jeff City is another good team. Obviously the lane was going to be clogged with the Linthacum girl and the shots weren’t coming at us from the outside, so it was a tough night offensively for us and we couldn’t get much consistency.”
Although Linthacum ended up getting his points, he also tallied double digits in rebounds with 11. However, seven of Linthacum’s 18 points came early as the senior center dominated in the paint scoring all but two of Jeff City’s nine points to lead to Boonville 9. -5.
With only one field goal to show for the first quarter, the Lady Pirates weren’t much better in the second period with a field goal and four points trailing Jeff City 24-9 at the half. The good news, though, is that Boonville was 4-for-4 from the free throw line in the first half and you can say he led the Lady Jays at one point after senior Abby Pulliam hit a 3-pointer from the bottom line. corner to give the Lady Pirates a 3-1 lead. Lead in the first. Boonville also cut it to two early in the second quarter on a basket by freshman Bella Imhoff to make it 9-7. Unfortunately for Boonville, they never got closer in the game, as Jeff City went on a 15-2 run through the rest of the second quarter to lead by 15 at halftime.
In the third quarter, Boonville again scored the first points of the period on a free throw by junior Alison Eichelberger. The Lady Pirates also got two free throws and a basket from junior Zoe Davis to cut the lead to 13 at 27-14. However, in a quarter marred by turnovers from both teams, Jeff City were too hard down the stretch closing the third period on a 10-0 run in the final four minutes and 21 seconds to extend the lead to 37 -14.
Jeff City also outscored Boonville 13-5 in the third quarter.
With eight minutes left to close the gap, Boonville came out and outscored Jeff City 6-3 in the first two minutes to cut the lead to 20 at 40-20. However, after two straight baskets by Linthacum and a basket by sophomore Aaleah Woodard to increase the lead to 24 at 46-20 with 4:03 remaining, Runyon gave the seniors one last chance to play together at insert the five on the court. Right away. Boonville proceeded to score the next four points on free throws by Abby Fuemmeler and Zoey Lang to make it 46-24. Runyon then took out the upperclassmen and inserted the freshmen for the remainder of the game, which ended Jeff City’s 5-2 run.
Zoe Davis and Alison Eichelberger tied for the team high for Boonville, which fell to 6-17, with six points. Davis also finished with four rebounds while Eichelberger had four rebounds and an assist. Effie Morris had four points, two steals and one rebound while Bella Imhoff had four points and two rebounds, Abby Pulliam three points and two rebounds, Abby Fuemmeler two points, two rebounds and one steal, Zoey Lang two points, two steals and one rebound. , Karagyn Cooper three rebounds, Molly Schuster one rebound and one assist and Payten Black one rebound.
For Jeff City, Linthacum was 18 and Natyiah Ewing was 11.
Boonville also finished the game shooting 22 percent from the field, 6 percent from three and 63 percent from the free throw line compared to Jeff City’s 31 percent from the field, 22 percent from three and 50 percent from the line. Jeff City also outrebounded Boonville 44-23 and scored 13 turnover points and 14 second chance points compared to Lady Pirates’ just six turnover points and three second chance points.
In the JV game, Jeff City defeated Boonville 24-1 in two quarters of play.
Boonville JV coach Tara Brackman said she was very proud of the class and character of the girls in the game. “They played hard every second,” Brackman said. “We had a difficult time with his pressure and the pressure from the whole court.”
Beth Giroux had the only point in the game for Boonville, 3-8. Giroux also finished the game with five rebounds. Reagan Wilson had three rebounds and one steal, while Delaney Rowlett and Hillary James each added two rebounds and Lilliam Newham and Maggie Schuster each added one rebound.
The Boonville Girls will play Southern Boone in a college doubleheader on Friday, February 17 in Ashland, starting at 6 pm Then, on Tuesday, February 21 in the regular season finale, the Boonville Girls will travel to Osage for face the Lady Indians. The game will mark a reunion for former Boonville coach Jaryt Hunziker. Hunziker coached 10 seasons in Boonville and led the Lady Pirates to their first state title in 2021.
