Panthers use poise, patience to take control against Raiders and salt away first victory

MONROE CITY, Mo. — Poised and patient wins.

The Monroe City boys basketball team is the epitome of that. Quincy Notre Dame wants to become a team capable of that.

The Panthers opened Tuesday night’s game with an 8-0 run, never relinquished the lead and systematically put away a 62-48 victory in their season opener hours after learning they were the No. 1-ranked team in the initial Class 3 state poll.

“Their patience was phenomenal,” said Raiders coach Kevin Meyer, whose team fell to 2-1. “They never got rattled. Even when we made a run, you could never rattled them. That’s senior boys who understand the offense and understand the big moments.”

Jaedyn Robertson understands it quite well.

The 6-foot-2 senior forward came off the bench midway through the first quarter and controlled the game from the high post. His first three field goals were putbacks, one of which led to a three-point play, that helped Monroe City stake a 29-21 halftime lead.

Robertson finished with a game-high 20 points and continually made plays on the offensive end to fend off any QND comeback bid.

“He’s a confident kid, and he’s really confident offensively,” Monroe City coach Brock Edris said. “Anytime someone catches it at 15 feet, you can play 1-on-1 and it’s one dribble to score. He did a good job of being creative. 

“They’d take something away, and he’d use a spin move. It’s kind of an old man’s game with a shot fake, an up-and-under move. He played poised and he played patient.”

By doing so, the Panthers just kept extending the lead. The advantage ballooned to 47-31 with 1:53 remaining in the third quarter. The Raiders chiseled away at it, but could never trim the deficit to a manageable number.

“You were constantly battling uphill,” Meyer said. “They ran their stuff to get baskets. They played everything through the high post and made shots. We didn’t. It felt like we were one stop or one basket away from being in it, and the next thing you know the deficit is 12. It was constant uphill.”

All-state guard Joshua Talton had 15 points for the Panthers, while Cade Chapman made three 3-pointers and finished with nine points off the bench.

That came after just four days of practice following the end of the Monroe City football team’s run to the Class 1 state quarterfinals.

“It will be nice to get back in the gym and work on some things we need to work on,” Edris said.

Meyer echoed that sentiment after seeing junior guard Braden Sheffield lead the Raiders with 19 points off the bench, while Jake Wallingford was limited to six points and Jake Hoyt was scoreless one game after erupting for a career-high 24 points.

“We’re going to break down that film and look at what we did,” Meyer said. “But we also watch it to learn what they did, how they stayed poised and how they stayed patient in the same offense.”