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Shanks' shooting helps Cottey past Forest Park
By Joe Warren
Nevada Daily Mail
NEVADA, Mo. -- Kerri Shanks set a school record with nine 3-pointers and had a personal best 31 points as the Cottey Comets held off the Forest Park Lady Highlanders in Region 16 tournament play Saturday, 74-70.
Shanks was nine-of-12 from beyond the arc, hitting five in the first half and four in the second to provide much of Cottey's offense in the first-round game.
The defensive strategy employed by Forest Park put the onus on Cottey's outside players.
The Lady Highlanders crowded the middle of the floor, trying to prevent Cottey inside players Lacy Leonard and Sara Sellin from doing much offensively. The strategy worked, as Leonard and Sellin combined for only 17 points, but Shanks and fellow guard Melissa Hedges made them pay.
"We knew we'd have trouble getting it inside," Cottey coach Dave Ketterman said. "When I saw their numbers, I knew they'd play zone."
Forest Park had only six players on the roster for the game, after a season in which grades, injuries and defections took their toll.
The Lady Highlanders did play zone, a sagging 2-3 version that had two or three players meeting every pass to the post.
That left the perimeter open, and Shanks got hot.
"If we're gonna get those looks, we've got to take them," Ketterman said. Shanks got hers and Hedges left her mark driving to the basket and attacking the seams in the zone. The freshman finished with 18 points.
Shanks overcame a bruised left eye, which was suffered early in the game as the result of a headbutt. Ketterman joked that the black eye seemed to get the Centerview, Mo., product going.
"I think when she got busted in the eye, she kind of did it (got hot)," Ketterman said.
Shanks said she was worried about trying to do too much, even though her shot was falling.
"I felt like, 'I've got to quit shooting,'" Shanks said. "I felt bad because I was taking too many shots."
Of course Cottey needed Shanks taking those shots, since she was making them at a 75 percent clip. Shanks has been impressive from downtown all season, hitting more than 55 percent of her 3-point field goals this year.
Leonard and Liz Wagoner each had 11 rebounds for the Comets, and Leonard added four steals.
The game was close throughout the first half, with Cottey taking a 38-35 lead into the break.
The Comets started the second half hot, using a 9-2 run to go up by 10. But Forest Park wouldn't go away, eventually pulling ahead 65-64 with six minutes to play.
The game was back-and-forth after that with each team exchanging small leads until Leonard's bucket following an offensive rebound with 3:03 remaining put Cottey up 71-70, and Forest Park didn't score again.
The win allows the third seeded Comets to advance to the NJCAA Region 16 semifinals where they will play second seed Meramec. The Comets and Magic split a pair of games in the regular season.
The regional semifinals are Friday with the championship game Saturday. The rest of the tournament games are at Florissant Valley, in St. Louis.