Cougars fall in conference play with M'duke, Riverside

It was a tough week for the Rector Cougars, losing key conference basketball games on the road at Marmaduke and Riverside.

The pattern was the same in both games, according to coach Matt Mills. "We are playing hard, but we just have trouble scoring," he said.

The Cougars scored only 82 points in two games, falling 41-36 to Marmaduke and 50-46 to Riverside. The three teams are among several essentially fighting for third and fourth place in the conference race and the Cougars now face the prospect of needing to beat one or both of these two opponents later in the season on the Rector court.

The Cougars got off to a decent start Friday night on the Rebels' home court at Lake City, using three-pointers by Brandon Stevens and Zach Burleson, to forge an 11-8 lead midway through the first frame.

But Cole Winford got hot for Riverside and the Rebels blitzed to 10 straight points to go up 18-11 at the end of the quarter.

Rector continued to have trouble scoring and trailed 25-17 at intermission and 33-26 at the close of three periods.

A trey by Stevens brought Rector to within 34-29 early in the fourth quarter, but Winford led the Rebels on another run to make it 42-29. The Cougars were not through, however, and managed to ease back into the game, 42-37, on an inside basket by Daniel Blackshare.

Free throws helped Riverside push back up 50-41 in the late going, before Kirk Horton hit a pair of charity tosses and a three-pointer to set the final four-point margin.

"I don't know if we can play much harder than we are," Mills said after the game, "but we are having two or three minute stretches without scoring and you just can't do that and expect to win.

"To win, we've got to shoot the ball well all night and we aren't doing that."

Mills said the Rebels were able to shut down the inside play of Tyler Kirklin, leaving the Cougars mainly to rely on the three-point shot, which they couldn't hit consistently.

Burleson finished with 15 points and Kirklin joined him in double figures with 11. Also scoring were Stevens 9, Kirklin 9 and Blackshare 2. Winford led all scorers with 23.

Rector was 9-14 at the free throw line, while the Rebels went 13-21.

In the junior high game at Lake City, the Riverside prevailed, 58-49.

Riverside had a big lead after one quarter, 17-5, but the Junior Cougars woke up with 20 points in the second frame to go into the halftime break down 30-25. They closed it to 44-42 after three period but Riverside was able to ease away at the end.

Mitchell Weber poured in 23 points for Rector and Dillon Shelton added 13. Also scoring were Daniel White 6, Alec Scott 5 and Adam Dinkins 2. Rector hit five three-pointers in the game and went 11-14 at the free throw line.

Riverside was 11-21 at the charity stripe. Logan Meurer led the way for the winners with 20 and Braden Peaster had 17.

"We didn't come out ready to play," coach Mills said, "and when you are at Lake City, you can't do that...after the slow start, we outplayed them the rest of the way."

Marmaduke Action

Rector got off to a good start in the game Tuesday of last week at Marmaduke.

The Cougars hit three treys in the early going and built leads of 8-3 and 13-7 before settling for a 17-12 margin after one quarter.

Burleson hit a three-pointer late in the second quarter, to give him 11 points in the first half, before Morgan Hawley added a basket at the end for the Hounds to make it 25-21 heading into intermission.

The second half proved to be a nightmare for the Cougars as they managed only three points in the third quarter (on a trey by Burleson) and only eight more in the fourth to fall 41-36 to their traditional rivals.

The slow third quarter saw both teams score little, but the Hounds were able to tie it, 28-28.

At the start of the final frame, Marmaduke gained the lead for the first time since the early going on a three-pointer by Hawle. But Burleson countered with a long-range shot of his own to push Rector back up 31-30.

The Cougars then hit a wall and didn't score again until there was less than a minute remaining in the game. By that time, the Hounds were up 38-31 and they hit three of six free throws down the stretch to maintain the advantage.

"We played hard in that game also," Mills said, "but we just couldn't score consistently.

"If you can't get 60 points, it's hard to win."

The Greyhounds utilized a strong zone defense and prevented Kirklin from getting the ball inside and the Cougars eventually wound up going cold from the perimeter. The result was the 20-11 scoring advantage for the Greyhounds after intermission.

Burleson paced Rector with 17 points. Also scoring were Kirklin 8, Stevens 6, Horton 3 and Haley 2. Matteo Rosin led Marmaduke with 11.

Marmaduke posted quarter leads of 11-5, 24-15 and 36-19 on their way to a 48-37 victory in the junior game.

Tyler Carter scored 10 points to lead Rector. Also scoring were Weber 9, Shelton 7, White 6 and Scott 5. Knight had 16 and Reagan 12 for Marmaduke.

The Cougars were scheduled to travel to Buffalo Island Central on Tuesday night before hosting Cross County on Friday and traveling Tuesday of next week to Marked Tree. All are conference games.