Mustangs shock Cooter

North Pemiscot's Parker Watkins (left) goes to the basket against Cooter's Nathan Poe during the second half of Friday's Tri-County Conference boys' basketball game at Wardell. [Click to enlarge]

WARDELL, Mo. -- Last season, the North Pemiscot Mustangs managed just three wins during a long, long season. After Friday, doubling that win total may be just the beginning for the Mustangs.

With Friday's 66-64 Tri-County Conference win over the Cooter Wildcats, North Pem not only finds itself in the thick of the Tri-County Conference race, but is also in the driver's seat for a top-4 seed at next month's Class 1, District 1 Tournament.

"For us to think to that we're in the top four seeds in the district, we would have never thought that," North Pemiscot coach Jamie Johnson said. "But we've been playing better and our kids are playing hard. All the credit goes to the way that they come out every night. They're playing hard for me right now."

The Mustangs also got a pair of big games from Grant St. Cin and Josh Tomlin, who scored 23 and 20 points, respectively.

"We expect numbers like that out of Grant, but for Josh to step in and contribute the way he did tonight (was impressive)," Johnson said. "Both of those guys offensively had great nights for us and that's how we ended up winning that ballgame against Cooter, because they're a good ballclub."

North Pemiscot (6-7, 3-1 TCC) took a 59-46 lead on St. Cin's free throws with 5:37 left in the game, but the Wildcats (9-6) began to chip away from there.

Back-to-back baskets by Michael Evans cut the lead to nine points, and four straight free throws by Nathan Poe and Devon Barger made it a 59-54 game with 3:39 to go.

The Mustangs then made the first two of several clutch plays down the stretch, collecting a pair of offensive rebounds on missed free throws to push the lead back to 63-54 on Tomlin's field goal at the 3:07 mark.

"They're extremely big," Johnson said of the Wildcats. "Us blocking out and trying to control a little bit of the boards tonight -- that's the success of the ballgame for us. If we don't block out and hit the boards hard against them, we don't win this ballgame tonight."

A pair of Parker Watkins free throws made it a six-point lead (65-59) with 1:33 remaining, but a bucket by Poe and two free throws by Nick Rinks made it 65-63 with 44.9 seconds left.

Cooter had a chance to tie the game with 25.7 seconds left, but a missed free throw kept the Mustangs' lead at one, and Watkins' free throw made it 66-64 with 19.5 seconds on the clock.

The Wildcats had one more chance to tie the game in the closing seconds, but John Jackson intercepted a pass in the open court to seal the game for North Pemiscot.

"He read the pass," Johnson said. "He took a gamble. He gets that pass right there and tonight it paid off. Some other night it may not, but tonight it did."

Watkins added 10 points for the Mustangs to join St. Cin and Tomlin in double figures, while Poe and Aaron McCaig led Cooter with 16 points each.

North Pemiscot will be shooting to get to .500 next Friday when it hosts Campbell in another Tri-County tilt.

"We're just real happy where we're at," Johnson said. "The kids keep playing hard and doing what I expect them to do. We hope that good things will happen."

Said senior Todd Hoggard: "We just practiced hard, played hard and got ready for (Cooter). We're going to do the same for the rest of the season."

Notes: The Wildcats won the junior varsity game, 49-48, despite 10 points each from Watkins and Edwin Childress. ... The Mustangs' next four games are against Tri-County foes, with three of those games (Campbell, Gideon and Holcomb) at Wardell.