CAPE GIRARDEAU — In what could be called a preview of next month’s Mayor’s Cup matchup, the St. Vincent Lady Indians rolled past the Perryville Lady Pirates 53-37 in the semifinal round of the First State Community Bank Holiday Classic at the Show- Me Center on Dec. 15.
The score may have seemed a little lopsided, but St. Vincent coach Mel Kirn said the game was a little closer than it looked, at least in the early minutes.
“It was a game of ups and downs,” Kirn said. “We started out really hot and then we got a little cold, and our defense went to sleep a little bit.”
After St. Vincent built a 14-5 lead in the first quarter, Perryville outscored the Lady Indians 14-12, closing the gap to 28-19 at the half.
“Out of those 19 points, 11 of them were at the free throw line,” Kirn said. “I thought we did a really good job of keeping them from scoring. We got some fouls, and they got to go to the free-throw line, but our girls really came out, and they were intense. They were really pressing and staying with them.”
Perryville coach Jason Dreyer agreed.
“They were really physical and really aggressive on the defensive end,” Dreyer said. “I just don’t think that we were 100 percent ready for that. There were a couple things that came out of that game that we really need to work on to improve the team, but I feel like we could compete with them. Here, over the next month, before the Mayor's Cup, we can fix a couple of things, and we can compete with them, and make that a competitive game."
St. Vincent seniors Brie and Kate Rubel combined for 29 points — Kate had 19 — while Lana Adams had 11 and Rylee Robinson had 10. Junior Aby Amberger led Perryville with a game-high 20 points, including her 1,000th career point.
“She and I were hoping she was going to get it her sophomore year, but she missed a couple games because of injury and sickness,” Dreyer said. “I don’t know, but I think her goal is to get to 2,000 points here before her career ends, which I think is a realistic possibility for her.”
After the final round of the tournament, Amberger has a total of 1,022 points so far for Perryville. According to PHS activities director Justin Dreyer, Amberger is the 13th Lady Pirate athlete to reach the career milestone in program history.
The Rubel sisters, who transferred to St. Vincent ahead of their junior seasons, reached the same milestone for St. Vincent earlier this season in two separate games against Saxony Lutheran — Brie in a regular-season matchup on Dec. 8 and Kate on Dec. 13 in tournament action.
As for the semifinal matchup with Perryville, Kirn had plenty of praise for the Lady Pirates, calling them “scrappers.”
“Perryville’s got a really good ball club,” Kirn said. “They’re scrappers. They’ll get in there, and they got some good shooters. Our defense just controlled the game quite a bit. [Dreyer] has done a great job with those girls. When they stepped on that court, Perryville was going to give us everything we could handle. And they did it all the way down to the wire. It was back and forth. We had the lead the whole game, but they cut it down to six a couple of times.”
Perryville made a valiant effort in the second half, staying within nine points, but ultimately was unable to overcome that crippling nine-point deficit from the first quarter.
“[St. Vincent] is a really good team,” Dreyer said. “Part of them being really good is that they’ve got four seniors that are really, really good. They’ve played a lot of basketball and know how to play basketball the right way. I think we learned some lessons in this game that will hopefully help us here the rest of the year.”
