The Kirksville Lady advanced to the championship game of the Class 4 District 8 tournament with a thrilling 42-39 win over Moberly Tuesday at Centralia. KHS overcame 16 turnovers to come out on top after a crazy 4th quarter. The Lady Tigers trailed 37-35 at the end of 3. Moberly went on a “run the clock” offense against Kirksville’s zone for the first several minutes of the 4th quarter. Kirksville’s defense never allowed Moberly to score a basket for the entire period. With KHS leading by 3 points with one second to play, Moberly’s Alaina Link got fouled and went to the free throw line to shoot two. Link missed her first, which forced her to intentionally miss her second, the ball never hit the rim, though, and Kirksville was awarded the ball out of bounds. Jada Jackson took the inbounds pass and the buzzer sounded giving KHS the win 42-39. Corinne Vorkink won the inside battle against Asa Fanning all night, and came up with four blocked shots. Elli Porter led a balanced attack with 13 points, including 3 huge free throws in the fourth quarter. Porter finished the night 7 out of 8 at the line. Jada Jackson played through sickness and scored 8 points, Vorkink and Jersey Herbst each with 7. Herbst hit a big bucket which gave KHS a late 4 point lead. Moberly’s Grace Billington scored 25 points. The third seed Lady Tigers climb to 21-4 on the year and will play top seed Hallsville for the district championship Friday night at 6:00 at Centralia. Pregame at 5:45. Hallsville eliminated Macon in the other semifinal 63-38.
Wednesday the Kirksville Tigers take on Macon in the district semifinals at 7:30, pregame 7:10.