The Lady Tigers did their job in getting Kris Flood his 500th career win Thursday, and they also made sure he had to do some coaching to hold up his end of the bargain.
Republic built a big lead at Webb City, then watched it start slipping away in the fourth quarter. But a late time-out by Flood settled things down and allowed the Lady Tigers to hold on for a 66-53 victory. The win was the 19th of the season for Republic, and the 500th of Kris Flood’s coaching career.
“It’s been a good ride. Once it’s all said and done I’ll get a little time to reflect and it will probably start setting in,” Flood said. “I think about all the players and parents and people that have gone through the program, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have coach (Tori) Mooneyham here the whole time, and had some really good assistants and good people in administration.”
Thursday night, it wasn’t easy to get away from Webb City, which entered the game with a 14-7 record. The Lady Cardinals built an early lead, but Republic used two of its familiar offensive outbursts to help gain control. The Lady Tigers went on a 14-2 run in the first half to turn a three-point deficit into an 11-point lead. Later, they scored 11 consecutive points during a third-quarter run to push their lead to 15. They eventually led by 22 points as the third quarter ended.
The key was controlling 6’5″ Webb City sophomore Sami Mancini, who managed only six points in the first half.
“Especially at the beginning, I thought we came out and we were executing on defense,” Flood said. “We got away from it a little bit later and were leaving our post players out on an island, and (Webb City) started finding her and got back into it a little bit.”
Mancini’s improved second half helped Webb City close the gap in the fourth quarter. The Lady Cardinals put 24 points on the board in the final period, cutting the lead from 20 points to 11 in the span of two minutes. But Lauren Chastain made a runner in the lane to stop the Webb City run, and a time out by Flood helped right the ship. Webb City never got closer than 12 points the rest of the way.
Kaemyn Bekemeier scored 24 points to lead Republic, and Chastain was also in double figures with 15.
Now that his coaching milestone is out of the way, Flood said he told his players they have bigger things to think about.
“I told them, we’re turning our focus to Ozark. We just want to keep trying to play as well as we can and try to keep pace here in the conference,” he said. “We’ve still got just the one loss and we’re trying to keep on track for a good seed in the district.”
The Lady Tigers (19-3, 4-1) will play at Ozark Monday.
Score by Quarters
Webb City 13 9 7 24 – 53
Republic 15 13 23 15 – 66
Individual Scoring
Kaemyn Bekemeier 24, Lauren Chastain 15, Misora Nambara 8, Molly Blades 7, Alaina Norman 7, Molly Mason 5