CAPE GIRARDEAU — The Perryville Lady Pirates had a bit of an easy road to the semifinals of the First State Community Bank Holiday Classic, topping Scott City by 50 points, 63-13 and edging Delta 54-52 before coming up against a motivated St. Vincent squad that sent them to the third-place game after a 53-37 loss.
Their luck wasn’t any better there. The Chaffee Lady Devils, fresh off a loss to eventual tournament-champion Jackson, were ready and waiting, delivering a 54-47 loss that left the Lady Pirates with a .500 record and a fourth-place finish at the Show-Me Center on Dec. 18.
“We didn’t play horrible,” said PHS coach Jason Dreyer. “We just gave up 22 offensive rebounds, which led to about 25 to 30 of their points. We were having a hard time rebounding against them.”
One bright spot for the Lady Pirates — who were 4-2 over the previous 11 days — was the play of junior Aby Amberger, who reached the 1,000-point milestone two days before and led the Lady Pirates (4-4) with a team-high 16 points. She was 6-for-6 at the free-throw line and, after the game, was named to the all-tournament team after averaging 17 points per game during tournament play.
“It was the second year in a row she got named to the all-tournament team,” Dreyer said. “Offensively, she’s been playing really good for us this year. Obviously, she is somebody that the other teams are going to key on. Zoe Hoehn and Janie Porter have been starting to come around offensively, because when the other teams are going start zoning in on Aby, we’re going to have to have some other girls step up offensively and score for us.”
Chaffee (6-3) led 25-19 at the half, and 37-30 after three, a margin that proved difficult to overcome for Perryville, even after outscoring the Lady Devils 11-7 in the fourth quarter.
“I felt like we took care of the ball for the most part really well, and we ran our offense pretty good as well,” Dreyer said. “That’s probably the two things that we did best. When we got down there towards the end, I feel like we did a really good job of turning up the pressure when we had to turn it up. We cut it down to one point, and then they just, down the stretch, they had a couple of three pointers in the last couple minutes.
“That was really the difference in the game.”
Those clutch three-pointers from Chaffee junior Bailey Robertson and sophomore Jersie Lynn capped the victory for the Lady Devils. Lynn led the Lady Devils with 13 points, and Robertson finished with 12. Junior Jordynn Brown had 9.
“I was proud of our effort in the last three or four minutes,” Dreyer said, “turning the pressure up and playing a different defense than what we’ve been doing, and creating turnovers and turning those into points to get us back in the game.”
Hoehn had 14 points for Perryville and Porter finished with 9. Lilly Cowell, Halie Fritsche, and Paula Sticht had 2 each.
Even after coming away with two losses, Dreyer called his team’s performance in the Holiday Classic a success.
“It didn’t end the way we wanted it to end,” Dreyer said. “But overall, we determined it was a success for us. It was good going down to Delta and beating Delta, and then playing St. Vincent and Chaffee the last two games, even though the outcomes weren’t what we wanted. I feel like playing those two teams — who are really solid teams — are just going to help us for the rest of the season and figuring out what we need to work on. I felt like, overall, it was a success.”
