Ashton Pace didn't light up the scoreboard like she always does. The Tipton junior didn't need to.
"It's a really good game for us whenever my leading scorer who averages right around 18 points per game only has seven, and we still win by 40," Tipton head coach Jason Culpepper said after his Lady Cardinals defeated the Belle Lady Tigers 69-29 on Saturday afternoon in the Missouri National Guard Shootout at Fleming Fieldhouse.
"That speaks a lot for our team about how everybody has their role right now and everybody understands it," Culpepper added. "Everybody is starting to understand that role of, "What am I and who are we as a team? I'm going to play good defense and cause turnovers. I might not be the one getting the bucket, but I'm doing my part to create that bucket.'"
It seemed as if every Lady Cardinal played their role to perfection Saturday. Eight players scored, seven had at least six points and Tipton held a whopping 43-19 advantage in rebounds.
"We can be an extremely good team," Culpepper said. "We have all the pieces that we need. A big part of that is having the feeling and the confidence that we do have the right team. Going out there and doing it makes it even better."
Senior Caroline Combs and sophomore Destiny Dowell both poured in 16 points for the winners. Dowell proved to be the catalyst early on, hitting her first four shots, including a trio of 3-pointers, on her way to 13 first-half points. Ten of Combs' points came after the intermission.
"It's been somebody hitting shots for us," Culpepper said. "We've got multiple people that can hit outside shots. Destiny hit four 3-pointers today. Very efficient. Caroline hit a couple in the third quarter, she had been having a bit of an off-shooting night in the first half."
It really didn't take too long for Tipton to assert itself as the stronger squad. The Lady Cardinals opened the contest with eight straight points. After Belle went on a 5-0 run, Tipton reeled off 11 consecutive points. Dowell was responsible for seven of those points, and Tipton led by double digits the remainder of the contest.
Tipton's lead ballooned to 26-9 after one period, expanded to 38-17 at halftime and went to 51-28 heading into the final quarter.
Tipton induced the running clock early in the fourth period on a layup from Combs that made it 59-28. The game took a little more than an hour to complete, with the final margin being the largest lead of the game.
While Tipton's offense and rebounding were top-notch, the defense might have been even better. The Lady Cardinals forced 20 Belle turnovers utilizing a man-to-man fullcourt press.
"We started this summer working on our man press a lot," Culpepper said. "We beat a lot of really good teams. We really worked on that. ... Against Centralia (a 50-45 Tipton win on Thursday) we caused 15 turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the ball game, which was against a pretty solid team. We continued that tonight. ... We're all pretty fast and move pretty well, so I think we can do a really good job with that press, causing turnovers and just making them feel uncomfortable."
Lacey Clark tossed in a game-high 18 points for Belle on 7-of-17 shooting.
Tipton (5-2) faces Otterville on Dec. 27, while Belle falls to 0-4.
"We've played our toughest games to start the year, and we came out of it 5-2 right now, so I'm pretty excited for what we have coming up," Culpepper said.