C3D1 girls: Lady Royals ride defense past Bloomfield

PORTAGEVILLE — The Twin Rivers Lady Royals basketball team knew it needed to get defensive to earn a ticket back to the district finals.

The Lady Royals did just that, limiting the Bloomfield/Richland Lady Wildcats to just 28 points to steadily pull away for a 51-28 win Thursday at Portageville High School.

“We've really relied on (our defense) all year long,” Twin Rivers coach Michael Snider said. “The girls have really bought into making things as difficult as we possibly can on everybody that we play. And you know, it's a lot of fun when you have a team that buys into your identity and what you want to bring to the table every single night.

“Our girls are working their tails off and I couldn't be more proud of them, because that was a tough game. That was one of the games on paper that was a toss-up — and I thought the difference in it was our defense and our toughness.”

The Lady Royals (20-7) led just 8-7 after the opening period and 16-11 at the intermission, but outscored Bloomfield/Richland 15-5 in the third quarter to take a 15-point lead to the final period (31-16)

“The first four minutes of the third quarter is always big for us,” Snider said. “We want to be the one that's the aggressor coming out — aggressive defensively, offensively, on the rebounds and on the floor — everything has to be aggressive all the time.

“That was the game plan going into that third quarter and I thought we executed it really, really quickly. I think in the first two minutes, we had several baskets, several turnovers, several runouts and several offensive rebounds — and that was the turning point of the game.”

Twin Rivers consistently frustrated the Lady Wildcats' efforts all night long. Bloomfield/Richland (17-10) made just six field goals in the opening three periods and just three total in the second and third quarters.

“We couldn't make a shot worth anything,” Bloomfield/Richland coach Emily Watkins said. “Their defense was tough. They kept switching it up, which really made us flustered.”

Ivy Benson led the Lady Royals with 17 points, while Megan Bader added 12 and the trio of Reese Crismon, Lilly Oliver and Layla Tompkins each finished with six.

Trinity Pinkley led Bloomfield/Richland with nine points, while Kendall Phillips added eight.

Despite the season-ending loss, Watkins is pleased with how the Lady Wildcats did this season, going from a winless team in the 2021-22 season to 33 wins the last two seasons.

“This senior group has done a lot to help grow this program to where it is,” Watkins said. “This senior group … their freshman year, they had zero wins … and now this year, 17 (wins). They've seen tremendous growth and they've helped this program grow. And the co-op with Richland has been a huge, huge help.”

Twin Rivers will take on Portageville for the Class 3 District 1 championship at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

“Portageville is a great team,” Snider said. “They're well coached, they're big, they're physical, they rebound, they can score, they can (press), they're athletic — they're a lot of things. We've just got to come out and we've got to play our game. We've got to do what we do every night (to) hang around and make sure we get a shot at this.”