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Lady Royals Christmas: Malden Green Wave clinch consolation trophy with victory over Holcomb Hornets
BROSELEY, Mo. - It was the final day of the Lady Royals Christmas Tournament at Twin Rivers.
The first game of the night was a Dunklin County rematch between the Holcomb Hornets and the Malden Green Wave. In a fight for the Consolation trophy, Malden would beat the Hornets 58-47.
The last time these two teams faced each other was at Malden’s home opener. The Green Wave grabbed their first win of the season over the Hornets with a 49-30 victory.
This gave Malden a little confidence heading into the Consolation Championships, but it also gave Holcomb some motivation.
Both teams came out of the gate trading punches, with neither gaining a real advantage over the other.
Malden only led by three points in the first quarter, 17-14, and five points at halftime, 32-27.
Holcomb presented points from each of their starters in the opening half. Senior Chloe Hendrix and junior Ava Gurley each had eight points, keeping their team within striking distance of the Green Wave team.
They would come out even stronger in the third quarter, finally outsourcing Malden 10-8. This brought the game to a three-point differential, as Holcomb trailed 40-37. Gurley added four points to her total in the third quarter, leading the Hornets. Along with her, sophomore Keyleigh Love-Mullins would also add four points to the board, scoring from the post.
Then the fourth quarter came around, and sophomore Carsyn Cohen from Malden caught a hot hand.
The Green Wave went on a 10-0 run, led by Cohen who scored eight of those 10 points. She finished with 10 points in the fourth quarter alone, extending their lead and clinching the consolation game for Malden.
Head coach Tye Miller and his Malden team had one goal in this tournament. He said they weren’t going to leave here today without a trophy.
“I told you that first day that we wanted to play all four days of this tournament,” Miller said. “I left out that we wanted to win the last day. Obviously, that was the goal and to be able to do that is a big deal for us.”
After taking only their second loss of the season in the opening round to host team Twin Rivers, Malden won three straight. They rolled passed Naylor with a 76-52 victory and took down Greenville 47-44.
“We have some resilient girls,” Millers said. “We know we’re not going to win them all. We lost to a really good Twin Rivers team, but we competed really hard every night. We didn’t hang our heads on that first loss. We just moved on and turned to the next page.”
In their second contest against Naylor, Cohen went off with 28 points. Freshman Mynena Thornton aided with 13 points.
Three days later, those two would lead their team again to edge out Greenville and avoid elimination. Cohen would put up 18 points while Thornton scored 11, which included three three-pointers.
Finally, to ensure their team received some hardware from this tournament, Cohen scored 16 against Holcomb and Thornton finished with 13 points. Junior Hestania Jackson also put up double digits against the Hornets as she finished with 10 points.
Gurley for Holcomb would be the team's highest scorer with 13 points. She knocked down three from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, Hendrix and Love-Mullins each had 10 points in Holcomb’s rematch against Malden.
With the inclusion of the Consolation title, Malden closes the 2024 portion of their season with a 7-2 record.
With their next competition coming on Jan. 7, Miller hopes to continue their momentum into the new year.
“The Twin River’s Lady Royals Classic was not our goal,” Miller said. “It was nice getting some wins here, but our goal is still to win a district championship, so that’s what we are working towards. Everything we are doing is working towards that.”