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St. Vincent girls catch fire, fly past Delta in high-motor FSCB semifinal victory
In a battle of tough, fast and most prominently talented teams, St. Vincent mounted an early lead and only added on as the game progressed, routing third-seeded Delta in a 68-31 final to advance to the First State Community Bank Holiday Classic final on Friday night.
Going blow for blow with one of the meanest, most unrelenting defenses in the area in Delta (5-2), the Indians (9-1) from the North never showed an ounce of drag as they turned on the hot hand right away.
“Our girls came out on fire shooting, anybody that had the ball,” Indians coach Mel Kirn said.
“We was finding the open ladies and they was just popping shots, and we built up that lead and then you can work from there.”
In total, St. Vincent finished with nine made 3-pointers, led by five from the unrelenting shooting of senior guard Haley Emmendorfer who finished with a team-high-tying 15 points.
The guard, coming off a knee injury last season, is making big strides as a depth addition to an already-loaded Indians cast that’s beaten everyone on its schedule, and her performance Wednesday was the perfect testament to her rise into the limelight.
“I'm really proud of Haley,” Kirn said. “She's fighting her way back, and she's getting a little bit stronger and she needed a good night.
“I mean, she got it tonight.”
Tying the senior at 15 points was Brie Rubel, who’s gotten used to leading the pack in points scored while Lana Adams and Kate Rubel’s 7 placed in a tie for third.
For Delta, Grace Ancell and Jade Berry split the scoring duties with 10 points each, with Berry canning two of the Ladycats’ three 3-pointers in the loss, with no other player scoring more than 4 points.
It’s a seemingly unprecedented loss for the Ladycats, their worst-suffered loss by scoring margin since the very first year of the David Heeb era, losing 71-32 to Scott County Central on Feb. 21, 2019 – nearly six years ago.
For better or worse, it goes to show that even as great as Delta is, when these St. Vincent girls are on, they’re on, and they sure turned the stove on Wednesday as they cooked up a five-star dish of a game at the Show Me Center.
“We know David [Heeb] does a great job with his girls down there,” Kirn said. “You know, they work hard and they never quit.
“Even though they was down pretty bad there in the third, fourth quarter, they didn't quit. We knew they wasn't gonna quit.”
Delta slips into the third-place game against Woodland at 7 p.m. Friday, a rematch of a Lady Devils Invitational semifinal matchup in which the Ladycats took a 12-point victory before eventually dropping the championship match to Chaffee.
The win sets up an 8:30 p.m. Friday championship date with Jackson, expected to be a matchup worthy of a championship stage as two teams combining for just one loss meet in a battle of two Indian superteams on the Show Me Center floor.
Both squads are projected as two of the very top teams in Southeast Missouri, maybe even the two best depending on who you ask, and Coach Kirn didn’t shy away from that fact.
Two teams who lean heavily on eccentric defense and a hot-shot offense will clash Friday, with Jackson chasing its eighth title and St. Vincent making its first title appearance so far.
With any luck, it’s bound to be one of the top matchups we’ll see in the area all year, and St. Vincent is gearing up for battle.
“I know they're hustlers,” Kirn began. “Angela [Fulton’s] done a great job with them girls and they got a lot of young girls. I watched them tonight against Woodland, and they're poised. They don't make a lot of mistakes, you know. They're gonna be a good test for us.
“We're gonna have to work hard. We know they'll press us. That's part of their game with their fast girls, but our girls are good too.”