Reindeer spoil South Pemiscot's homecoming night

STEELE, Mo. -- The roller coaster ride continues for the Clarkton Reindeer.

After a disappointing loss to Risco in the finals of the Clarkton Holiday Tournament and a one-point loss to Cooter earlier in the week, the Reindeer bounced back Friday night by knocking off South Pemiscot for the second time this season, this time on the Bulldogs' homecoming by a count of 71-43.

Much like in the first contest in which Clarkton came away with a narrow win, the opening quarter was hard fought and physical as much of the quarter was spent at the free throw line. A pair of Jacob Redden 3-pointers gave Clarkton an 11-9 advantage.

More outstanding perimeter shooting up and down the Reindeer lineup which was capped off by a Dustin Ferguson trey in the corner that gave Clarkton the momentum of a 31-20 halftime lead.

"Tonight was a big game for us in getting our season headed back in the right direction," Ferguson said afterwards. "I thought we found some of that defensive intensity that has been missing recently. Hopefully we can carry that intensity over to Tuesday night against Risco."

After giving up at least 90 points each of the last two games, the Reindeer defense has taken some criticism. However Clarkton showed remarkable improvement on the defensive end by holding South Pemiscot to only 43 points on the night.

"Our defense has come under a lot of criticism lately," Clarkton coach Scottie Blackburn said. "We talked about how there are three phases of defense. There's transition defense, there's your actual defensive set, and there's defensive rebounding. Where we were getting hurt was in the transition phase. So we basically spent all of practice this week working on our transition defense, and I think we got it corrected tonight."

Clarkton really began to pull away in the second half as fatigue and the Reindeer guards seemed to catch up with the Bulldogs. Three different times, Justin Brown took the ball to the hole for an uncontested dunk. Brown and Ferguson also knocked down numerous jumpers in the fourth quarter to seal the deal.

Just as he has in nearly every game this season, Ferguson led the Reindeer offense with 19 points. He was joined in double figures by all four of Clarkton's other starting five.

The Bulldog offense was paced by a 13-point night from Jordan Carter.

Clarkton travels to Risco on Tuesday, while South Pem plays at Kennett.