By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
The Missouri Western women's basketball team used a dominant second quarter to pull away from Saint Mary and down the Spires 94-65 on Wednesday night at the MWSU Fieldhouse in St. Joseph.
Leading 24-14 at the end of the first, the Griffons outscored Saint Mary 28-10 in the second quarter to go up 52-24 at the break.
Missouri Western was led in scoring by junior Brionna Budgets, who had a game-high 26 points on a career-best seven made three-pointers.
Junior Connie Clarke had 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting. She also had four steals, three rebounds and three assists.
Junior Mary Fultz logged a season-high 16 points off the bench on 8-of-9 shooting. Missouri Western shot 54% from the field, and were 16-of-20 at the free throw line. The Griffons also outrebounded the Spires 42-26.
Saint Mary made 12 three-pointers, but were held to 39 percent shooting from the field overall.
"We got to play everybody and that's what we wanted," Missouri Western coach Candi Whitaker said. "Didn't want to get anybody hurt and wanted to come out with a win and knock some rust off and get ready for conference games coming up. So, I'm happy with most of it."
Missouri Western men dominate down the stretch against Friends
The Missouri Western men found themselves in a low scoring struggle with Friends University in the first 14 minutes of Wednesday's game, but a 15-3 run by the Griffons to end the first half turned the tide.
Missouri Western led 35-18 at halftime and dominated the rest of the way in an 82-49 victory on Wednesday night at the MWSU Fieldhouse.
The Griffons shot well from long range, knocking down 15-of-27 three-point attempts. Conversely, Friends shot only 33.3% from the field.
Reese Glover led Missouri Western with 15 points on 5-of-7 shooting from beyond the arc. Julius Dixon had 14 points on four made triples, Will Eames scored 13 points and Zion Swader logged 10. Eames led the team with eight rebounds, while Swader had four assists and four steals.
"It gave us a good opportunity to hold each other accountable and get a lot better," Missouri Western coach Will Martin said. "Definitely some positive things. We got four guys (to score) in double digits and that's starting to become a little bit of a trend for us is having 4-5 guys in double digits and that makes you hard to beat."
Both the Missouri Western men's and women's basketball teams are back in action at home Saturday to face Rogers State in MIAA Conference play. The women play at 1:30, and the men follow at 3:30 p.m. Both games will be on KFEQ Radio (680, 95.3, 680kfeq.com).
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