The Missouri State University West Plains Grizzles played the Mineral Area Cardinals on the afternoon of February 17, 2024.
The Mineral Area Cardinals get the first score of the game. Last time the Grizzlies played the Cardinals was on January 10th, and that started the Grizzlies loosing streak. The game started right off the bat as a neck to neck game, already fighting each other for the winning score. They stayed tied for most of the first half of the game, tying first at 2, then at 6, and then again at 12 points. This was a fast paced game right from the start, these teams didn’t need the slow paced warm up lots of ballgames start with. They were ready to play. The Grizzlies fall a little behind the Cardinals half way through the first half, but they really keep up their game not letting the Cardinals get to big of a lead. The Grizzlies were really wanting to get out of the 10 game slump, as you can tell in the first half. The first half of the game had a stretch of time where no baskets were made, the scores staying at 25 to 18. The Grizzlies had 12 turnovers to the Cardinals 1 turnover. The Missouri State University West Plains Grizzlies are very close to getting the same amount of turnovers playing the Cardinals as the game on January 10th. In that game, they ended with 27 turnovers. This is so far a very low scoring game, ending the first half at a score of 31 to 20. The Grizzlies trailing behind the Mineral Area Cardinals by 11 points.
The Grizzlies get the first score, a good start to the second half. They follow this up with a 3 pointer closing the Cardinals lead even more. Coming back after half time seemed to have done the Grizzlies some good. They start of strong coming into the second half, but so does Mineral Area. They bring their score back up to a 10 point game of 37 to 27. The Grizzlies get turnover 16 only 6 minutes into the second half. The Cardinals only widen their lead further into the final half of the game bringing the score to a 15 point gap of 46 to 31. As always the second half brings a lot of timeouts in the game, the ballgame had 3 timeouts when their was still 13 minutes left in the game. The Cardinals continued to pull away and ahead of the West Plains Grizzlies, there was 10 minutes on the clock and the score was 51 to 34. Cardinals stay in in the driver’s seat with the Grizzlies in the back seat for a good portion of the end of the game, the Grizzlies never quite catching up to Mineral Area’s big lead. When the game timer hit 6 minutes the Grizzlies had hit a 20 point fall behind and growing. The Missouri State University West Plains Grizzlies push back against the Cardinals as the final draws to a close. They score a couple points shortening the gap between the two teams bring it to an 18 point game instead of a 22 point game at 68-50. This only leads to the last and final shove from the Mineral Area Cardinals, with them beating the Grizzlies and winning the game with the score of 79 to 54.
This is the third time that the Missouri State University West Plains Grizzlies have lost to the Mineral Area Cardinals this season and the Grizzlies 11th loss in a row. The Grizzlies had 24 turnovers this game compared to the Cardinals 8 turnover the whole night.
The Grizzlies will play again on February 21, 2024 against Three Rivers. You can listen to that game live on 102.5 KDY.
