The Wellsville-Middletown girls basketball team didn’t celebrate a third straight Keytesville Tournament championship, but still left the Chariton County town with more hardware.

The W-M Tigers placed second in the tournament after losing 60-30 to the Higbee Tigers in the championship game on Feb. 1. W-M, the No. 2 seed, finished with a 2-1 record in the seven-team tournament and dropped to 5-13 with the loss to Higbee.

The Tigers competed in the Keytesville Tournament for the fifth year in a row and have placed in the top three all five years. They won it all in 2023 and 2024 and placed third in 2021 and 2022.

About an hour before, the W-M boys celebrated a third-place victory in the Keytesville tournament after beating Bevier 54-21 in the third-place game. The 33-point margin marked a season-high for the Tigers, who improved to 6-11.
Last year, W-M finished with a 1-2 record in the Keytesville tournament. The Tigers won titles in 2021 and 2022 and placed fourth in 2023.

The W-M girls began Keytesville tournament play on Jan. 27 with a 36-4 win over seventh-seeded Southwest High School in a first-round game. Three days later, they knocked off sixth-seeded Norborne 53-35 in the semifinals to advance to the championship game against top-seeded Higbee.

In the title game, the W-M Tigers got off to a slow start and never recovered. They trailed 27-6 after the first quarter and 38-14 at halftime.

Last year, W-M defeated Higbee 65-58 in overtime in the Keytesville finals. The loss to Higbee snapped W-M’s nine-game winning streak in Keytesville tournament play.

The Higbee Tigers took advantage of the W-M Tigers’ turnovers. W-M had 30 turnovers, 21 were in the first half. Higbee scored 21 points off of W-M’s turnovers.

W-M senior Keigan Hall finished with a team-high 14 points with five rebounds. Also for the Tigers, sophomore Elly Cash finished with eight points and 10 rebounds, senior Hallie Guzy had three points and five rebounds, junior Helanea McKenzie scored three points and sophomore Aubrey Harmon added two points.

The W-M boys also finished with a 2-1 record at Keytesville. The fourth-seeded Tigers started tournament play on Jan. 27 with a 58-45 win over fifth-seeded Norborne. They lost 61-16 to eventual champion Higbee in the semifinals on Jan. 30.

W-M’s senior class of Cooper Henderson, Gage Marshall, Jonah Slovensky and Brennan Cash provided most of the scoring for the Tigers in the third-place game. Henderson finished with 25 points with three 3-pointers, Marshall scored 14, Cash had eight and Slovensky added six.

W-M trailed 3-2 after the first minute of the game before closing out the first quarter with a 13-0 run to take a 15-3 lead it never relinquished.