COLUMBIA -- After last Friday night’s win in the state quarterfinals, St. Elizabeth coach Quentin Voss said the first half of that game against Hume was the best defense his Lady Hornets had played all season.
Then, in Wednesday afternoon’s state semifinal game against Cairo, St. Elizabeth forced the Lady Bearcats to miss their first 10 shots and limited them to just 15.2 percent shooting for the whole contest.
On second thought, Voss would like to revise his previous statement.
“I’d say this one probably was (our best defensive game),” Voss said after St. Elizabeth dominated Cairo for a 59-20 victory at Mizzou Arena to advance to the Class 1 state championship game.
“Defense was extremely good today,” Voss added. “They missed some shots today they normally make, but our defense was hounding them pretty well.”
With the win, top-ranked St. Elizabeth (29-2) will play third-ranked Delta (27-4) for the state title at 4 p.m. today. Delta defeated second-ranked Rock Port 67-55 in Wednesday’s first semifinal game.
St. Elizabeth will put its defense to the test against a Delta team that is averaging 70.6 points per game.
“It’ll be tough, because you know they’re going to press the whole game,” Voss said. “They’ve got a lot of different shooters. We’re going to have to be able to guard in space a little bit more.”
The Lady Hornets lowered their scoring defense to 38.7 points per game with Wednesday’s win. For the second straight game, St. Elizabeth held its opponent without a field goal in the first quarter.
“When shots don’t go in, it’s pretty tough sometimes to keep the psyche up, to keep the mental ability focused on the game,” Cairo coach Brian Winkler said. “Credit to St. Elizabeth, they did a really good job.”
But it also took St. Elizabeth a few minutes to get going. The Lady Hornets missed three shots on their first possession of the game.
“It definitely took a few minutes,” St. Elizabeth’s Reagan Wobbe said. “If you couldn’t tell, I bricked two layups coming right out. But after the first two minutes, it was back to being like any other game.”
Wobbe made a layup on the second possession, giving the Lady Hornets a 2-1 lead it held the rest of the game. Kinley Kemna added a layup off a pass from Wobbe, who followed with a second-chance 3-pointer the next trip down the court. Wobbe added a pair of free throws to cap a 9-0 run less than three minutes into the game.
“We got settled in,” Voss said.
Foul trouble nearly became an issue for St. Elizabeth, but Voss did not hesitate to go to his bench. Nine players were on the court for at least 12 minutes for the Lady Hornets, who received an early boost from Bella Green. The freshman grabbed eight rebounds in 12 minutes of action.
“Bella did a really good job helping us,” Voss said. “Rotating bodies, it worked pretty well.”
St. Elizabeth rebounded all 10 of Cairo’s missed shots in the first quarter, holding a 20-5 lead on the scoreboard after eight minutes. By the end of the game, the Lady Hornets outrebounded the Lady Bearcats 49-19.
“We were really good at rebounding today,” Kemna said. “If we hadn’t, it definitely would’ve been a lot harder of a game.”
Olivia Oligschlaeger made a 3 from the right wing late in the first quarter, then Caitilin Kliethermes came off the bench to knock down a 3 from the same spot, pushing the St. Elizabeth lead to 25-7 with 4:45 to go in the second quarter.
“They don’t shoot a whole lot during the year, but when they make those, it just kind of puts our offense over the top,” Voss said.
Wobbe capped the first-half scoring with a nifty over-the-shoulder reverse layup that gave St. Elizabeth a 34-12 lead at intermission.
The Lady Hornets used a 12-0 run in the third quarter to widen the lead to 50-16 by the end of the third quarter, forcing a running clock for the final eight minutes.
St. Elizabeth shot 51 percent from the floor. Kemna boosted that percentage by going 6-of-7 from the floor for 12 points.
“Kinley, with her size and her length, she’s our power forward and there aren’t very many power forwards that can guard her,” Voss said.
Wobbe tallied a game-high 24 points, overcoming a slow start offensively by making eight of her final 14 shots. With Wobbe drawing a lot of attention, it helped St. Elizabeth have nine players enter the scoring column Wednesday.
“When they have to pay so much attention to her, everybody can eat when they have their chance,” said Voss, who was able to get all 14 Lady Hornets playing time in the win. “It was definitely a good team win.”
Olivia Cross and Eva Jaecques each scored five points for seventh-ranked Cairo (25-6), which will play Rock Port (28-3) in the third-place game at 10 a.m. today.
“I don’t know that (today) was a true reflection of who we are,” Winkler said, “but there’s no question about it, St. E is physical, they’re athletic and they’ve got the right people touching the basketball at the right time.”
The loss snapped a 21-game winning streak for the Lady Bearcats.
“We ran into a buzzsaw today, and that’s the way it works,” Winkler said.
St. Elizabeth and Delta are each playing for their first state championship in program history. With a win, St. Elizabeth would be the reigning Class 1 state champions in baseball, softball and girls basketball.
“It’s honestly unbelievable that we’ve finally made it here after so many years of falling short,” Wobbe said. “It’s even more special that it’s in my senior year.”