The Wellsville-Middletown boys basketball team enjoyed a successful season in Eastern Missouri Conference play last winter.

After starting off league play with a heartbreaking, 40-38 loss to Clopton, the Tigers bounced back to finish third in the 11-team conference standings with a 7-2 record. One of those victories was a 65-60 overtime win over Bowling Green on the road.

“It was nice,” W-M senior Isaac Seabaugh said. “We can still do that again this year. We’ve just got to get our heads in it.”
So far, the Tigers have split their first four games in EMO play. They had victories over Montgomery County and Mark Twain and suffered a pair of four-point losses to Clopton and North Callaway.

North Callaway moved into a first-place tie with Elsberry at 4-0 in the conference standings with the 49-45 win over W-M on Jan. 18. Elsberry knocked off Louisiana (3-1) in a battle of undefeated EMO teams on Jan. 18. Clopton and Bowling Green are tied for fourth at 2-1 and W-M is in sixth at 2-2.
W-M coach Steve Lasman said this year’s conference is pretty competitive.

“Elsberry is the team to beat,” he said. “This is the strongest the boys conference has been since I’ve been here. There are a lot of good teams.”

The Tigers began their conference season on Dec. 17 on a high note, beating two-time defending EMO champion Montgomery County 36-24. It was W-M’s first win over the Wildcats since 2013.

The Tigers fell to Clopton 39-35 on Jan. 11 on the road for their first conference loss of the season. A month ago, W-M knocked off the Hawks 37-36 in the seventh-place game of the Montgomery County Invitational.

“We couldn’t finish the easy ones,” Seabaugh said. “We had a lot of turnovers. That seems to be a trend for us against these teams that are active on defense and breaking up passing lanes. We just have to be smart with the ball.”

W-M bounced back three nights later with a 60-40 win over Mark Twain in a senior night game at home.

The Tigers had 15 turnovers in their loss to North Callaway at home. Last year, W-M defeated the Thunderbirds on the road.

“They shot the ball really well,” Lasman said. “We turned the ball over too many times. But our kids played hard. They’re a good team. They’re a 4A school.”

The Tigers were also handed their first home loss of the season. They’re now 7-1 at home.

“It was a tough loss,” said Seabaugh, who finished with a team-high 18 points. “I wished we could have won that game. We were definitely capable of winning that game.”

W-M’s next EMO game will be on Feb. 1 against Elsberry on the road. The other remaining conference games are Louisiana (Feb. 4), Van-Far (Feb. 8), Bowling Green (Feb. 11), Silex (Feb. 15) and Wright City (Feb. 17).

The Tigers, who won 19 games last year, dropped to 8-4 overall with the loss to North Callaway. W-M won eight of its next 10 games after starting off its season at 0-2.

“We have a great bunch of kids,” Lasman said. “We play hard every night. That’s all you can ask for as a coach.”