The young, scrappy Dragons from De Soto gave Festus a battle for four quarters Monday night, but the Tigers held on for a 61-59 win to capture the Jefferson County Activities Association large-schools championship for the second straight season.
Festus finished 4-0 in conference games. De Soto is 2-1 in league play and finishes its conference schedule tonight (Feb. 9) against Hillsboro (2-1).
“They should have won,” Festus head coach Ron Rhodes said of the Dragons. “They played harder than we did. We were fortunate to come out of there with a ‘W.’”
Rhodes noted that Tiger senior Ally Frazier has endured a horrible shooting slump for three or four weeks. But it was Frazier’s 3-point basket in the waning seconds that won the game. De Soto had a chance to tie it as the clocked ticked down, but Festus senior Alex Tinnin got a steal and held on to the buzzer.
“The nit and grit of the Tigers didn’t want to share that conference title,” Rhodes said. “Our experience paid a big dividend.”
That experience took a blow when senior Jordan Oetting injured her ankle Feb. 1 against Sikeston. Freshman Abby Rickermann has filled in at point guard since Oetting went down and scored 15 points against the Dragons. Rhodes said Oetting will rest her ankle for at least another week.
Senior Ashley Fallert led the way for the Tigers with a season-high 20 points against De Soto. The Dragons were got a game-high 27 points from junior Madalyn Bone and 20 points from sophomore Kendall Boyer.
“We gave it our all,” said De Soto head coach Sam Rauls, who faced a major rebuilding project this season after losing his top eight players from last year. “We had the lead from the start through the third quarter and just could not hang on. My girls played their hearts out and I think we shocked a lot of people by the effort we gave.”
Rauls added that he has a lot of respect for Rhodes, the former De Soto mentor, who gave Rauls his first coaching job in 2005.
A star is born?
If necessity is the mother of opportunity, Festus fans may have witnessed the birth of a future star Feb. 2 against Perryville.
On the same day the groundhog emerged to see his shadow, Abby Rickermann arose from the far end of the Tiger bench to torch the twine for 22 points in her first-ever varsity start. The pigtailed freshman guard, one of the smallest players on the floor, personally outscored the visiting Pirates by three points in a 55-19 romp.
It was just what the doctor ordered for a Tiger team still hurting from a bruising home loss 24 hours earlier, 72-66 to Sikeston. More significantly, the team’s floor leader and top scorer, Jordan Oetting, suffered an injury to her left ankle in a collision in front of the Festus bench. She could only watch the Perryville game from the sideline, wearing a boot and awaiting an X-ray the next day to determine the severity of the injury.
In the meantime, Rhodes has a new weapon in the backcourt in Rickermann, who took Oetting’s lineup spot alongside Jenna Oetting, Jordan’s sister. Rickermann nailed two 3-point baskets and made six of eight free throws. She came into the contest with 30 total points all season, in 12 games.
Did she ever dream of having a game like this?
“Absolutely not,” Rickermann said. “I didn’t even know I was going to start; I’ve never started a varsity game in my entire life. I got to play more and it just felt surreal.”
The daughter of De Soto High principal Mike Rickermann, she’s better known to Tiger fans as the starting shortstop for head coach Jeff Montgomery’s 2016 district-champion softball team, which she led in hitting with a .494 average. She plays select softball in the summer but also has played basketball every winter since she was in second grade.
Rickermann said her team was motivated to play well after coming up short against Sikeston and seeing their top player leave with an injury.
“We took a tough loss last night against Sikeston, so I felt like tonight we were really trying to work together,” she said. “We were all looking for the open shot and passing the ball around really well.
“(The Oetting injury) does hurt because she’s a great player and a good teammate. But we didn’t let it hurt us too much. We picked it up and we all did our part.”
The younger Oetting, Jenna, finished with 13 points and a game-high seven assists. The Tigers feasted on 29 turnovers and improved to 14-4.
Even with Jordan Oetting out, Rhodes decided to shake up his starting five, going with reserves Allison Kuykendall, Maddie Welsh and Morgan Wendel in addition to Rickermann and the younger Oetting.
“We’ve been going through a little slump,” Rhodes noted. “We needed to wake some people up and get some other blood in there a little bit and get some other kids some playing time. It’s getting late in the season and we’ve got to get some of our seniors and our starters woke up to step up.”
He was happy, nonetheless, to find that the dark cloud of Jordan Oetting’s injury contained a silver lining in Rickermann. It’s a little bit of a throwback to his first season coaching the Tigers, 2012-2013, when the current seniors were freshmen and led the team to its last district championship.
“She’s a gamer,” Rhodes said of Rickermann. “She’s tough and a better athlete than a lot of people think she is. And she’s got some basketball sense. She’s going to be a good one in the future.
“Right now she’s my next-best choice to replace Jordan. That’s good for the future of the program to have young kids like that coming up. It’s fun to see those kids grow.”