MONTGOMERY CITY, Mo. - The sample size is small, but Fulton head coach TJ Quick can see tangible progress from her fledgling Lady Hornets.
No. 6 seed Fulton crafted a 12-point lead in the second quarter, but No. 5 Montgomery County relied on a pair of momentum-shifting runs to trip the Lady Hornets 49-44 in the fifth-place game of the Montgomery County Tournament on Friday night.
The loss left Fulton at 1-3 on the season.
"It's leaps and bounds," Quick said of the Lady Hornets' early development. "I know they're frustrated and upset, I'm frustrated and upset - we should have won that game. You've got to look at the bigger picture - this is week two of the season, none of these teams are conference teams and we're already drastically improving every game.
"Every game is a much better team than we put on the floor the night before. As a coach, with an inexperienced team, that's all you can ask for."
Trailing 47-44, Fulton had an opportunity to tie the game and force overtime after calling a timeout with 19.7 seconds to play. The Lady Hornets had designs on freeing up Dionne Vaughn for a 3-pointer, but the senior guard was unable to get a clean handle on the inbound pass. The Lady Wildcats forced a jump ball in the ensuing scramble, with the possession going to Montgomery County.
Fulton had to foul and sophomore guard Anna Henke made both ends of a 1-and-1 with :09.9 left to seal the victory for the Lady Wildcats.
Quick noted that the failed attempt to get Vaughn open for a 3 was an important learning moment for the Lady Hornets.
"We had 19 seconds and needed the play to develop," Quick said. "Dionne quickly went down and quickly came up, and we didn't have the second screen ready for her.
"She's trying to get the ball with 17 seconds left, and we had 19 seconds for that whole play to develop. That's something that's going to come with time and experience."
Vaughn - Fulton's only senior and lone returning starter from last season - delivered 19 of her game-high 25 points in the first half to spark the Lady Hornets again as their primary scoring source.
"It's tough to come in as the only senior, knowing that there's not a lot of experience and everybody's looking at you," Quick said. "Not only are they looking at you to score, but they're looking at you to tell us what to do, they're looking at you to stay positive."
In addition to Vaughn, Quick started a junior, guard Shawnie Hempfield, and three sophomores - guard Grace Sparks and forwards Haden Trowbridge and Mattie Arnold - on Friday night. Sparks finished with six points, Arnold had five and Hempfield and Trowbridge both contributed four.
Quick is trying to coax those varsity newcomers to become more offensive-minded. Fulton shot just 33 percent (20-of-60) as a team.
"It's obvious what teams are going to do to us now, it's going to be a box-and-one (defense on Vaughn)," Quick said. " We want her to take over the game, obviously, but some other people are going to have to step up.
"Tonight, we got the ball to those people and we just didn't make shots. We took baseline shot after baseline shot, and we didn't make it, and we took free-throw shot after free-throw shot, and we didn't make it. We need to adjust, we need to pump-fake and get to the rim. That's just a game situation that we don't quite understand yet."
The Lady Hornets got off to a quick start, tallying the final eight points of the first quarter to establish a 14-5 advantage. Vaughn's steal and layup then put Fulton up 22-10 with 5 minutes, 57 seconds to go in the second quarter. Montgomery County, though, found its groove and jolted the Lady Hornets with a 15-2 run to take a temporary lead.
Sophomore guard Hannah Prior dropped in a basket on a drive in the lane to give the Lady Wildcats a 25-24 edge at the 1:24 mark. Trowbridge answered immediately with a bank shot in the lane to put Fulton back in front and Vaughn followed a Montgomery County turnover with a 3-pointer to make it 29-25 with :44 remaining in the half.
Senior forward Lydia Bishop made the back end of two free throws with :32.1 left to cut the Lady Wildcats' deficit to three points at halftime.
Montgomery County then slammed the Lady Hornets with a 10-2 run coming out of the break to go in front to stay. Bishop's free throw with 4:18 to go in the third quarter gave the Lady Wildcats a 36-31 advantage and they took a 40-35 lead into the fourth quarter.
"That first quarter, I thought we attacked the basket. We had 10 points in the paint," Quick said. "I thought the second quarter we settled for shots. I didn't feel we capitalized as well offensively, getting to the basket like we did in the first quarter.
"We settled for those baseline, 8-foot, 10-foot shots."
Prior and Henke accounted for the majority of Montgomery County's output, tallying 20 and 19 points, respectively.
Fulton travels to Blair Oaks for a tripleheader at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
"The wins are going to come," Quick said. "They might not come early, they might not come this year, but they're going to come when we keep working hard and getting better."