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No. 11 Blue Devils roll; Greyhounds home Saturday
llege's women worked as hard as they could Wednesday night, suiting up just six players due to injuries. But No. 11-ranked Kansas City Kansas took advantage of the depleted Greyhounds and took a 65-40 victory that helped give them the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Region VI-Division II post-season tournament.
Fort Scott (2-6 Jayhawk Conference-Division II, 6-6 region, 15-15 overall) was already locked in as the No. 4 seed and will host a first-round game against independent Hesston (4-8 region, 12-17 overall) at 2 p.m. Saturday at Arnold Arena. The 'Hounds swept the regular-season series with the Larks.
The Greyhounds finished in the middle of the region by sweeping the teams they needed to beat (Hesston, Brown Mackie and Labette) in order to secure Saturday's home game, the program's first since the 2006-07 season. The other three teams in the region (KCK, Hesston and Johnson County), who each swept the Greyhounds, are all nationally ranked and are a combined 82-7 this season with Johnson County at 30-0.
Kansas City (5-3, 9-3, 27-3), which is unbeaten outside the conference, scored the game's first 11 points in the first three minutes of play. The Blue Devils led 17-4 before Fort Scott got a rally going to end the opening period.
Alexis Byrnes hit a 3-point shot from the right wing and followed up with a pair of free throws. Kayleigh Haggard scored a pair of field goals to end the period with Fort Scott trailing 17-11.
Kansas City outscored Fort Scott 15-9 in the second quarter with all of the Greyhounds' scores coming from behind the 3-point line. Although Lillie Holtgrave made a 3-pointer for the 'Hounds to cap the scoring for the half, KCK went into the break with a 32-20 lead.
Kansas City's advantage grew to 52-26 before Byrnes and Haggard got back-to-back baskets to close out the third. Then KCK scored 8 of the first 10 of the fourth.
The Greyhounds were playing again without starters Tabor Spurling and Jordyn Danzer. Spurling has a shoulder separation that could cause her to miss the playoff game on Saturday. Danzer has been out with a concussion.
Erin Anderson led Kansas City with 14 points followed by Brooklyn Wagler with 13 and Janay Jacobs with 11. The Blue Devils shot 38 percent from the floor, making 23 of 61 field-goal attempts.
Byrnes led Fort Scott with 17 points and Haggard finished with 10 points and a team-leading 9 rebounds. Sophomore Kamiron Luptak, the second-leading scorer in the division at 17.7 points per game, was held to 5 by KCK's defense on 2-of-15 shooting.
Fort Scott shot just 27 percent on 16 of 59. The Greyhounds outrebounded the Devils 43-41 but committed 25 turnovers.
NOTES -- Fort Scott's opponent in its last home playoff game in 2007 was Dodge City. Fort Scott defeated the Conquistadors 94-67 to advance to the quarterfinals at Wichita, where they lost to Cloud County, 89-84....
The 2007 team was the last coached by Kristy Guffey. She was 1-4 in playoff games and she is just one of three of Fort Scott's previous 18 head coaches to win a playoff game. Nathan Daume was 3-4 in the playoffs from 1999-2002. Diana Couch was 1-3 in the playoffs from 2009-12. Her 2010 team beat Cloud County on the road in the first round, 61-60, before losing to Labette in the quarterfinals at Wichita. That is the last playoff game the Greyhounds won....
Saturday's game will be current head coach Katie Rheimann's third playoff game but her first one at home. Every FSCC playoff game prior to her tenure came as a Division I team. If she wins -- and that would be just the sixth playoff victory for the program in 30 tries -- the Greyhounds will play at top seed Johnson County Tuesday night....
The other first-round game on Saturday sees sixth-seeded Brown Mackie (11-19) playing at Highland (25-4). The winner of that game travels to Kansas City Tuesday night....
The finals will be held in Park City at 1 p.m. March 3....
KANSAS CITY KANSAS: Anderson 6-9 0-0 14, Scott 1-6 1-2 3, Wagler 5-16 3-3 13, Roberts 1-8 0-0 3, Bockover 0-0 0-0 0, North 2-8 3-4 7, Tauai 3-5 0-0 6, Jacobs 4-6 0-2 11, Daye 0-2 4-4 4, Jarrett 1-1 2-2 4. TOTALS 23-61 13-17 65.
FORT SCOTT: Byrnes 6-17 3-5 17, Luptak 2-15 0-0 5, Holtgrave 1-11 1-2 4, Haggard 5-8 0-1 10, Iseman 1-4 0-0 2, Bohannon 1-4 0-0 2. TOTALS: 16-59 4-8 40.
Kansas City. 17 15 20 13 -- 65
Fort Scott...... 11 9 10 10 -- 40
Three-point field goals: Kansas City 6-23 (Jacobs 3-5, Anderson 2-4, Roberts 1-6, North 0-1, Daye 0-1, Scott 0-2, Wagler 0-4), Fort Scott 4-16 (Byrnes 2-7, Holtgrave 1-3, Luptak 1-6).
Total fouls: Kansas City 14, Fort Scott 15. Fouled out: none.
Rebounds: Kansas City 41 (North 12), Fort Scott 43 (Haggard 9). Assists: Kansas City 14 (Daye 6), Fort Scott 8 (Holtgrave 4). Turnovers: Kansas City 18, Fort Scott 25. Steals: Kansas City 16 (North 6), Fort Scott 9 (Holtgrave 3, Iseman 3). Blocked shots: Kansas City 8 (North 5), Fort Scott 3 (Bohannon 2).