Doniphan's Erin Pennington, center, drives to the basket between Twin Rivers' Jordan Sentell, left, and Stephanie Jennings during Thursday's third-place game at the OFC Tournament in Broseley. (Brad Hurt/DAR) [Click to enlarge]

By BRAD HURT ~ DAR Sports Writer

BROSELEY -- With the momentum of a buzzer-beating shot lifting their spirits going into halftime, the Doniphan Donettes put together a big third quarter to put away Twin Rivers in the third-place game of the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament 55-40.

Jordan Hart nailed a 3-pointer from the left elbow with time running out in the second quarter to break a 20-20 tie and give her team a halftime lead.

The Donettes then scored nine straight points in the third quarter to take control of the game for good.

Hart led the Donettes with 13 points.

"Jordan's been playing really good. I think she kind of set the spark for us," Jaysa Blackwell said of her teammate.

Added Doniphan coach Jimbo Blackwell: "Anytime you can go into halftime with a little momentum like that, it helps."

The Donettes' run resulted from their ability to knock down shots in the open floor, something they couldn't seem to do against Greenville on Wednesday.

Chelsea Swindle opened the half with a 3-pointer from the top of the key.

"I thought we got some transition baskets in the third quarter that we haven't been getting," coach Blackwell said.

Jaysa Blackwell scored her first points of the game with 1:23 remaining in the third quarter, making a layup and a free throw to give the Donettes a 39-28 lead.

The Donettes (13-7) opened the fourth quarter by scoring five straight points, helped in part by the Lady Royals' inability to knock down shots. Doniphan got contributions from several different sources. Kadie Civils stuck back a teammate's miss for a 49-34 lead with 5 minutes left, and Hart stretched the lead to 17 with a fast-break layup 2 minutes later.

The Lady Royals (10-13) came at the Donettes and got their shots to go down in the first quarter. The quarter featured intense defense on both ends of the floor as the Donettes committed eight turnovers while the Lady Royals gave the ball away seven times.

Jordan Sentell gave the Lady Royals the lead with a steal and layup midway through the first quarter, forcing coach Blackwell to burn a timeout.

Kelsey Snider got a layup to go down and completed a 3-point play to put the Lady Royals on top 8-7 with 1:52 remaining in the quarter.

They took a 12-9 lead after the first quarter.

One of the main factors in the loss for the Lady Royals was their inability to make free throws. They hit only 6 of 20 from the charity stripe.

"You've got to make them when you're down," Twin Rivers coach Jeff Walk said.

The Donettes also forced 17 turnovers.

"I just thought all night that we were really solid defensively," coach Blackwell said.

Blackwell said his team made the decision to approach this game as an opportunity rather than sulk about missing out on the championship game for the first time in 14 years. Doniphan won the last four titles and 11 of the last 13, losing to Twin Rivers in 2002 and '03.

"We're obviously very disappointed that we're not playing (Friday) night," he said. "There's only two ways to go. We talked about last night and this morning that we could come over here and pout or we could come over here and play hard against a good team, and we did that."