CARTHAGE — The Carthage girls basketball team had one of the hottest teams in the Central Ozark Conference on the ropes.
But despite taking a six-point lead into the final quarter, Carthage eventually succumbed to a late Ozark surge in a 57-52 overtime setback on Friday night at Carthage High School.
Ozark (12-10), which downed Class 5 No. 2 Willard 58-53 the night before, picked up a fourth consecutive win in conference play while Carthage (12-10) suffered its fifth loss in the last seven games.
"Our girls were motivated to come in and take on a team we thought we could play with," Carthage coach Scott Moore said. "We felt like we matched up really well with them position by position, even though they just beat Willard and Willard kind of took it to us last week. … We had fresh legs and we executed well early, but we didn't finish the first half well and we didn't finish the second half and overtime well. That's what got us."
Ozark trailed 36-30 at the end of the third period before a fourth-quarter rally saw it take a 45-44 lead after Mariah Putt made a layup in traffic with 1:25 remaining in the fourth.
Two more lead changes occurred before Carthage's Brinna Ream grabbed a rebound off a missed jumper by Hailey Fullerton and went back up for a layup to make the score 49-49 at end of regulation.
Ream finished as Carthage's leading scorer with 16 points. Her activeness in the paint throughout the night also led to a team-high 14 attempts from the free throw line, where she converted nine.
"Credit to Brinna for muscling her way down there to get us that crucial basket at the end of regulation," Moore said. "She played a really good game tonight and was our one big advantage. They didn't really have an answer for her in the paint. She led us in scoring and more than likely led us in rebounds, too."
It was all Ozark in the four-minute overtime period as it closed on an 8-3 run with two 2-point baskets and four free throws. Carthage didn't score its first points until the 1:27-mark of the period and surrendered three crucial turnovers that led to Ozark points.
"After the game, I told the girls that this one should sting because we had a late lead on one of the teams in the top half of the league and we didn't reward ourselves with a win," Moore said. "But what we can learn from that is it's going to be a battle in our next three regular season games before we get to the postseason. I think we found out that we can run with these good teams, and now it's all about finishing these games instead of letting them slip away."
Carthage jumped out to a 22-15 lead in the first quarter before Ozark rallied to make it a two-point game, 24-22, by halftime.
Fullerton and Kianna Yates also finished in double figures for Carthage with 13 and 12 points, respectively.
Putt poured in a game-high 30 points for Ozark, while Anna Hitt chipped in 10 points.
-Jared Porter, Joplin Globe Sports