DUPO - Daisy Daugherty led Roxana with 14 points, while Laynie Gehrs added seven points as the Shells won over backyard rival East Alton-Wood River 48-20 in the final of the Dupo Cat Classic Saturday morning at the Dupo High School gym.
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The game, originally scheduled for the afternoon, was moved up to a 10 a.m. start to avoid a conflict with the Roxana Class 3A semifinal football playoff game against Mt. Carmel, which was played at Charlie Raich Field in Roxana on Saturday afternoon.
The Shells led from start to finish, scoring 10 points in the opening quarter, nine in the second, 10 more in the third and 19 in the final period to take the win and tournament championship.
To go along with Daughety and Laynie Gehrs' performance, Roxana saw Abby Gehrs hit for four points, Ava Strohmeier, Tatum Shaw, and Kylee Slayden all had three points each and Ava Cherry, Kinsley Mouser, Brown, Aubrey Wiegand, Hayley Schlemer, and Mikaela Murphy all had two points each.
Lily Tretter and Kaylynn Buttry each had six points for the Oilers, Mia Plum had four points, and Ocean Bland and Kaylin St. Peters both had two points.
Roxana's head coach Addaya Moore was ecstatic about the Shells' championship victory.
"Going into this game, we knew it wasn't going to be easy due to the rivalry aspect. We scouted and had a game plan. The girls did amazing executing and sticking to the plan," she said.
"The way these girls prepare for a game is next level and I give them their props for being locked in and ready to go."
"We made the trip without starter Jordan Ealey, who had an illness," East Alton-Wood River head coach Lyndsey Perez said.
"We had prepped for Roxana's offensive threats, at practice, but failed to execute. Roxana outplayed us, we hope to change that in the next match-up. Buttry played tough taking over Ealey's defensive job at the point of our press."
The Shells are now 3-0 on the season and play at Maryville Christian on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., then play their home opener at Larry Milazzo Memorial Gym against Freeburg in a 7:30 p.m. tip-off on Thursday, Nov. 30.
The Oilers are 2-1 and play their home opener at EAWR Memorial Gym against New Athens on Monday night, then play at home again on Nov. 30 against Columbia, both games starting at 7:30 p.m.
Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.
