Mineral Area teams close out regular season play

SEDALIA — On Saturday the men’s and women’s basketball teams for Mineral Area College shared their last regular season night with a doubleheader played at Region 16 foe State Fair. The men salvaged the only win for MAC with a 71-56 second-half runaway over the Roadrunners.

Mineral Area trailed by five points at the half, but they bested their host by 20 points in the second frame as they won out on both boards and improved their field goal percentage by 10.

Mineral Area pulled down 51 rebounds to State Fair’s 33 with Kaleb Wright leading the board attack with 13. Wright also led the team in scoring with 25 points. Al Rapier was 7-8 at the line to finish with 13 points and Demetrius Harris scored 10.

The Cardinals (19-11) will start Region 16 tournament play on Tuesday at West Plains.

State Fair 62, Lady Cardinals 58

SEDALIA — The Lady Cardinals could not make up the deficit they had developed in the first half, and the State Fair Lady Roadrunners gave their home fans a 62-58 win to cheer about. State Fair led at the half by six points, 32-26.

Tatianna Washington and Brittany Young provided the bulk of State Fair’s scoring with 18 and 16 points respectively as the two teams were very even in all categories except one, the score.

Leola Hubbard had an outstanding shooting game as she shot .500 from the floor on twos (5-10) and threes (3-6) and was perfect at the line (3-3). Hubbard also pulled down eight rebounds, second only to 10 by Shelli Liverpool.

Hanna Vette scored 11 points, and Karley Evans had 10 along with a team-leading seven assists.

Mineral Area (16-13) will travel to Moberly on Tuesday for their Region 16 opener.

Lady Cardinals 82, Crowder 78

NEOSHO — On Thursday, the Lady Cardinals were able to dig out of an eight-point hole in the first half to come roaring back for an 82-78 win over the Crowder Lady Riders. Like Saturday’s men’s game, the Lady Cardinals owned the boards with 51 rebounds to Crowder’s 32 with four different players pulling down seven apiece.

 The Lady Cardinals also scored an extra nine points at the free-throw line with leading scorer Karley Evans making 9-12. Evans finished with a total of 20 points, seven rebounds and seven assists.

Leola Hubbard got the job done on both ends of the court with four three-pointers to help make up her 14 points, and on defense she stole the ball five times. Hanna Vette scored 15 points and was also a rebound leader, and Shelli Liverpool scored 13 points.

Mineral Area’s rebounding gave them 19 second-chance points.