Moberly takes district victory

By Kris Childs

Friday night the Championship games were played for boys and girls Class 4 District 8 and it couldn’t have been a better match up. Moberly who going into the tournament with an unbeaten conference record at 12-0 certainly expected to win.

Mexico had other plans in the first quarter and came out strong matching shot for shot with the lady Spartans and after one held a lead of 16-15. After a brief message from coach Douglas Moberly came back out and executed their well planned fast paced offense and went on to become District Champions by a score of 58-46.

As fate would have it Moberly would play Mexico again for the boys championship game. Moberly and Mexico had already played each other twice in the year and split the two games with Moberly beating Mexico away, and losing to them on their own court.
The Spartans scored their fewest amount of points of any quarter in the first but still led 14-8 after one.
Moberly was outscored 15-23 in the second and trailed 31-29 at the break. But coach Ty Hames would make a halftime adjustment and in the third the Spartans came back out and put up a 20 spot on the scoreboard while holding Mexico to 10 third quarter points.
Going into the fourth Moberly held an 8 point lead which proved to be enough for the Moberly Spartans to claim their second District Championship of the night with a 69-62 victory.

Brennen Hughes lead all scorers with 19 points and 15 rebounds. Cory Briggs made 4 3-pointers and totaled 18 in the game. Chris Ewens also had 14 points.

Moberly beat Kirksville last Wednesday night in the semifinals to advance to the championship game.

Moberly set the tempo of the game in the first outscoring their opponent 17-5. The 12 point margin at the end of one would prove to be the smallest gap between the two teams for the remainder of the game.

Moberly outscored Kirksville in all four quarters Wednesday taking an easy victory 51-34.

Top scorers for Moberly were Brennan Hughes with 23, Cody Westhues with 12, and Chris Ewens with 7 points.

Moberly’s next game will be against St. Dominic Wednesday at 7:45 at Fleming Fieldhouse in Jefferson City.