BASKETBALL: Lady Warriors season ends in Regional
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The DuQuoin Middle School girls basketball team ended their season on Thursday evening at Sparta with a loss to Murphysboro in the Class L Regional. The final score was 30-23 with No. 1 seed Murphysboro taking the victory, and advancing to the finals on Saturday.
Murphysboro led throughout the game, but only led by one at the end of the first quarter at 6-5. Murphysboro extended the lead at the half 17-10. After three quarters, DuQuoin was behind 23-14, and the final was 30-23.
Alaina Caldwell led the Warriors in scoring with 10 points. Jordyn Bullar had 6 points, Andrea Morgan 5, and Kate Smith 2.
Head Coach Debbie Ritter said, "This is not the way we wanted to end the year. We had all the opportunities in the world, but couldn't make a shot. We were only down by 7 at the half, but were so down on ourselves that we just couldn't snap out of it. As bad as we were shooting, Murphy was shooting that good--hitting everything they shot."
"Kate Smith stepped up as a 7th grader to help try to snap us out of our funk, and she did a great job. Kate and Timbra Mansfield combined for some really good moves. Nikki Ridgeway finally returned a couple of games ago after an injury and picked up right where she left off. This has been a great group of girls to work with, and they are much better than their record shows. I hope these girls keep playing together in high school. They could be really fun to watch."
The assistant coach is Chuck Montgomery.
DMS ends the season at 6-17 overall and 4-8 in the Conference.