Fast start lifts Lady Royals into semifinals

NAYLOR — The Twin Rivers Lady Royals basketball team used the inside-outside punch of Lilly Oliver and Lanie Lawson and also rode a fast start to a 16-point halftime lead on the way to a 49-34 win over the host Naylor Lady Eagles in the final game of the first round of the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament on Saturday night.

The Lady Royals (13-7), seeded third in the OFC Tournament,

“I thought we did some good things (Saturday) night but went on (overly) long scoring droughts,” Twin Rivers coach Michael Snider said. “We will have to fix that and be more efficient. But our effort was really good — and we were able to hang our hat on our defense.”

Naylor (6-10) trailed just 10-9 after Gracie Tillman drained a 3-pointer from the corner with 43 seconds left in the opening period, but the Lady Royals dominated the second quarter, scoring 18 in a row to open the period and taking a 28-9 lead on Abbigail Rayburn’s free throws with 24.6 seconds remaining before the intermission.

Six Twin Rivers players scored in that period, with Oliver and Lawson each scoring four to lead the game-turning surge.

“I thought we had a lot of girls who played pretty large roles for us,” Snider said. “Lanie hit some shots and Lilly definitely caused them to collapse their zone a lot.”

The Lady Royals led 28-12 at halftime and extended their lead to 41-23 going to the fourth quarter, but Naylor did not give up, scoring the first seven points of the period and cutting its deficit to 41-30 on Trinity Futrell’s trey with 6:13 left in the game.

Cannon’s jumper with 3:08 left again cut the Lady Eagles’ deficit to 11 points at 43-32, but that was as close as Naylor got the rest of the way.

Tillman led the Lady Eagles with nine points, while Futrell added eight and Cannon had seven.

Lawson paced the Lady Royals with 14 points, while Oliver added 13 and Marcy McBroom finished with 10.