But in the end, led by Kinsey Benack’s 17 points and 13 rebounds, the Festus girls basketball team knocked off host Fox 59-51 on Jan. 28.
Festus senior guard Abby Rickermann, despite being hounded defensively by the Warriors, contributed 12 points and eight rebounds for the Tigers and Taylor Thompson added 11 points. Lily Knickman chipped in with nine points and as many boards for the Tigers in the win. Minea Dervisevic paced Fox with 15 points, while Mya Chapman and Veronica Reisner had 10 points apiece.
“We’ve been off a long time,” Festus head coach Steve McFarland said before the contest, noting that both squads had been idle for nearly two weeks, largely because of weather issues. “So I really don’t know what to expect.”
Then the Festus coach watched his squad fall behind 27-19 at the half after the Warriors had an 11-2 run in the second quarter. Dervisevic scored nine of her 15 points during the first two quarters.
The Warriors increased their lead to as many as 15 points at 38-23 early in the third quarter, with two of those points coming on free throws after McFarland was assessed a technical foul.
That’s when the Tigers made their move. They reeled off the next 15 points as part of a 25-6 tear, finally tying the game at 38-38 on two Rickermann free throws in the final seconds of the third quarter.
The Tigers kept the momentum going in the final stanza, eventually building a 52-40 advantage before Fox struck back. Three straight buckets by the Warriors made it 54-49, before Festus closed it out at the free-throw line.
All of which allowed McFarland to wear a wry smile as he left his team’s locker room.
“We kind of let them back in it,” he said. “We had two or three bad possessions, turnovers, and they got easy layups. But Abby and Kinsey both did a great job for us, and we had a couple good minutes by a couple of kids whom we were able to use from the JV game. Emily Holt (3 of 5 from the field off the bench) has been working on her shot really hard and has done a lot of good things off the bench. We had to have our best defensive effort after we fell that far behind what is a good offensive team.”
Benack finished the game 8-of-13 from the field and snared nine of her rebounds on the defensive glass.
“I think, a lot of times, we get behind in the beginning of games,” she said. “We don’t seem to be really competitive at the start so we have to help each other out. A big part of this win was our bench players coming in and doing a lot, so we didn’t miss a beat. It just goes to show that we trust other people besides Abby.”
Fox head coach Matt Weber was direct about his team surrendering a seemingly insurmountable advantage.
“They wanted it more than we did, plain and simple,” he said. “We stopped hustling in the third quarter.”
The Tigers improved to 6-7 on the season while the Warriors fell to 6-8.