Lions get Jordan first win

Staff photo by Mike Buhler Senath-Hornersville coach Shane Jordan (center) talks to his team between quarters during Thursday's game against Gideon at the Bulldog Classic at Gideon. [Click to enlarge]

GIDEON, Mo. -- Fresh off of a 20-point loss to the Gideon Bulldogs the previous week, not many gave Senath-Hornersville much of a chance to win the rematch.

Guess again.

The Lions ran off 16 straight points in the first quarter to build a big lead and never looked back in rolling to a 60-38 win over Gideon in the consolation semifinals of the Bulldog Classic here Thursday night.

In other action at the Bulldog Classic, Hayti outlasted South Pemiscot 90-88 in overtime in the other boys' consolation contest, while in girls' consolation semifinal action, Malden downed Caruthersville 59-14 and Campbell took down Portageville 37-34.

In action at the Bernie Invitational, Holcomb upended Puxico 62-54 to reach the consolation finals, while in the semifinals, Bernie downed Campbell 85-57 and Bloomfield rolled past Risco 75-55.

At the Cooter Invitational, Piggott, Ark. defeated Southland 49-12 while host Cooter downed Delta C7 61-32.

Thursday's win was also the first victory for new Senath-Hornersville coach Shane Jordan.

"I'm real excited about it," Jordan said. "We came out early, played hard, shot the ball very well and handled their pressure very well here. It was a big win for our program. The kids have been working really hard for it. I'm excited about it."

The Lions (1-2) did not score the first 2:58 of Thursday's contest, but caught fire when they finally got on the board.

Jordan Bibbs scored Senath-Hornersville's first basket with 5:02 left in the first quarter, then added another one minute later to give his team a 6-2 lead. Heath Horvath's bucket with 3:21 left in the period made it an 8-2 game and forced a Bulldogs' timeout.

The Lions stayed hot after the stoppage, getting back-to-back 3-pointers from Matt Fouts and Horvath to cap the run and make it 16-2 with 1:33 left in the first period.

"We shot the ball very well at the beginning , let us get that big lead," Jordan said. "We didn't really get to cruise from there, but we kept playing hard and we kind of started working (our) way inside."

Senath-Hornersville never let up, leading 18-6 after the opening quarter and pushing the lead to 20 points (28-8) on Michael Gardner's 3 with 4:32 remaining in the opening half.

The Lions extended their lead to 49-23 -- their biggest advantage on the night -- on Jorge Garza's basket less than 30 seconds into the final period and never let Gideon get any closer than 17 points the rest of the night.

Bibbs led Senath-Hornersville with 15 points, while Gardner added 13 and Horvath finished with 10 to pace a balanced attack.

"It's really nice when you get a bunch of seniors (going) and a couple of juniors get in there and balance out that scoring," said Jordan. "Our bigs really helped us out. Jordan Bibbs really played well inside and we shot the ball excellent outside."

Joey Richmond led the Bulldogs with 11 points.

The Lions will take on Hayti for the consolation championship Saturday at 2:30 p.m., while Gideon and South Pemiscot will play for seventh place at 11:30 a.m.

On the girls side, Malden and Campbell will play for the consolation title Saturday at 1 p.m., while Portageville and Caruthersville will battle for seventh earlier in the day at 10 a.m.

Campbell 37, Portageville 34
In girls consolation action, the Lady Camels used a 13-5 edge in the second quarter to build a 20-13 halftime edge, then held on to advance to Saturday's consolation championship.

Whitney Whorton scored a game-high 18 points to lead Campbell, while Taylor Thacker added 10 in the win.

Janika McIntyre paced Portageville with 13 points, while Kaityln Nowlin finished with 12.

Bernie Invitational
Holcomb 62, Puxico 54
In the consolation semifinals at Bernie, Zach Williams hit six 3-pointers and scored 16 of his team-high 24 points in the final period to lead the Hornets into the consolation championship contest against East Prairie.

Tyler Crawford added 12 for Holcomb, while Alex Johnson finished with eight.

Cooter Invitational
Cooter 61, Delta C7 32
At Cooter, the host Wildcats got 14 points from Shane Henning and 11 from Zach Watkins as they wore down the Chargers in pool play at the tourney.

Cooter outscored Delta 10-2 in the second period to take a 21-14 lead to the locker room, then outscored the Chargers 40-18 in the second half to seal the victory.

Damian Flowers paced Delta with 11 points.