A pair of streaks the Fulton Hornets wish would end will continue courtesy of the rival Mexico Bulldogs.
Unbeaten Mexico dealt Fulton its third straight loss with a 73-63 North Central Missouri Conference setback before a capacity crowd celebrating courtwarming Friday night at Roger D. Davis Gymnasium.
The Hornets - winners of seven straight to open the season - have now lost their last 10 meetings with the Bulldogs.
"The only way I know to get out of a hole is to dig out of it," Fulton head coach Ryan Shaw said. "We need to work our way out of this."
The Hornets' skid comes during a stretch of games where they are compensating for the loss of senior guard Ricky Dawson, their second-leading scorer. Dawson broke his hand during Fulton's 64-63 NCMC loss at Hannibal on Dec. 30.
His absence has forced senior Austin Wilson to move from his usual forward position to Dawson's shooting-guard slot. The switch has meant fewer shots for Wilson, who was averaging a team-high 18.3 points coming into Friday night's matchup.
Not having Dawson in the lineup hasn't just affected Wilson, though.
"There are times now where shots aren't available to him because his role has adjusted," Shaw said. "So it's really affected everybody kind of rotating here and there."
The Hornets (7-3, 2-3 NCMC) had difficulty converting on the offensive end in the early going Friday night. Junior forward D'Angelo Walker scored Fulton's only basket in the first 8 minutes as Mexico built a 15-7 lead after one quarter.
The Bulldogs (7-0, 4-0 NCMC) then stretched that advantage to 23-11 on junior guard James Norton's jumper with 4 minutes, 56 seconds left in the first half.
The Hornets attacked the rim at the outset, forcing Mexico senior guards Skylar Harrington and Cole Jaramillo to the bench with three fouls apiece midway through the first quarter. Fulton kept the game within reach by making 10-for-14 free throws in the game's first 12 minutes.
After Norton drew a technical foul, junior guard Kalin Mitchell hit two free throws to draw Fulton within 23-13 with 4:39 left in the half.
"We always tell them there's not an 11-point shot on the floor," Shaw said. "We just need to get baskets because the worst thing you can do is force up shots and get nothing on the other end.
"You have to get baskets and stops."
Eventually, the latter would help make way for the former for the Hornets. Fulton utilized traps and a mixture of half- and full-court defenses in the second quarter, turning Bulldog turnovers into easy baskets.
The strategy allowed the Hornets to go on a 16-7 run to close the half. Senior forward Devin Gibson's buzzer-beating layup gave Fulton a 30-28 edge at the break.
"You make a few baskets and, all of a sudden, you feel better about yourself," Shaw said. "That's what you have to do. ... You see a few go in and it's just mental, I guess."
The second half started just as the first ended as the Hornets extended their lead to 39-32 behind a 9-4 run. However, after a Mexico timeout, the Bulldogs got back-to-back baskets from junior guard D'Milo Nunnelly and a 3-pointer from Norton to erase the deficit and tie the game at 39-all with 3:41 to go in the third quarter.
The two teams traded the lead four times over the duration of the period, with Mexico taking a 50-48 advantage on Nunnelly's layup with :02 left. Fulton then responded with rushed shots and ballhandling miscues in the opening moments of the fourth quarter, decisions that the Bulldogs would quickly capitalize on.
Mexico turned those mistakes into an 11-4 run in the opening 2:45 of the quarter. Jaramillo's 3-pointer from the left wing extended the Bulldogs' cushion to 61-52 with 5:15 to go.
"We took a couple of bad shots and (committed) a couple of bad turnovers, and all of a sudden we're down (nine)," Shaw said. "We panicked a little bit."
Mexico shooters settled into gaps in the Hornets' defensive set and fired at will from behind the arc in the final period. The Bulldogs hit five 3-pointers in the fourth quarter and led by as many as 13 points in the closing minutes.
Norton and Jaramillo were both 4-of-6 from 3-point range, sparking Mexico with 30 and 22 points, respectively. The Bulldogs shot 47 percent (29-of-62) as a team.
"I don't know if we necessarily lost that game in the fourth quarter," Shaw said. "I think we lost it by having to dig ourselves out of a 13-point hole and we had to press and do some things that expended a lot more energy than we would have had to if we made those baskets."
Gibson paced Fulton with 23 points on 8-of-22 shooting. Wilson logged 13 points, while junior guard Radarion Glover totalled 10 in his second start in place of Dawson. The Hornets shot just 37 percent (19-of-51) from the field, including a dismal 3-of-18 effort from behind the arc, but finished at 71 percent (22-of-31) from the foul line.
Senior forward Sam Christensen grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds for Fulton as the two teams fought to a 34-all stalemate on the boards.
"We're 7-3 in our first 10 games; I think we would have taken that in any regard, but the way it's happened, we just feel bad," Shaw said. "It feels bad, but if we're 7-3 in our first 10, we have to feel satisfied with that."
The Hornets (4-2) bowed in the junior varsity game 48-38 at Fulton Middle School.
Fulton received the No. 2 seed for this week's 91st-annual California Invitational Tournament. The Hornets play No. 7 seed Boonville in the first round at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
The NCMC foes have split their two meetings this season. The Hornets won 86-69 on Dec. 16 in Fulton, while the Pirates prevailed 61-58 on Jan. 6 in Boonville.
Josh Mosley can be reached at (573) 826-2423, or by email at [email protected].