Monett Lady Cubs basketball knock off Sarcoxie

Monett High School opened up their 2025-26 basketball season as both the girls and boys teams were in action last week.
The Lady Cubs traveled to Sarcoxie on Monday, Nov. 24, and came home with 10-point, 59-49 win.
Monett jumped out to an 18-14 first quarter lead and increased that lead to 37-26 by halftime. In the third quarter, the Lady Bears held Monett to nine points to cut the Lady Cubs lead to 46-37. Monett pulled away in the fourth quarter, outscoring Sarcoxie 12-11 to win the game by 10 points.
Meredith Merriman finished the game with a double-double, scoring 25 and adding 17 rebounds, Avery Stokes had 12 points, Kilee Wilson added nine points, six rebounds and four assists, Kalli Hohensee had eight points, Addy Brownlee and Kenzi Waterman both had two points, and Destiny Ungeni finished the game with one point.
“I’m proud of our effort for the first game of the season,” said head coach Josh Klien. “We shared the ball, and the girls created a lot of opportunities for their teammates.”
Monett is 1-0 on the season and were scheduled to play in the 6th Annual Crane Lady Pirates Invitational this week from Monday through Saturday.

Boys’ basketball
The Cubs boys’ basketball team traveled to Billings on Monday and came home with a 69-51 loss.
A very close first quarter saw the Wildcats have just a two-point advantage, as Monett trailed 13-11. In the second quarter Billings was able to increase their lead to 31-27 by the half. The Wildcats continued to pressure the Cubs as they added another 17 points in the third quarter to go up 48-42. Billings put the game away in the fourth quarter as a 21-point effort led to the 18-point victory.
Alex Meeks paced Monett with 23 points, six rebounds and six steals and Jack Stephens ended the game with 11 points and eight rebounds.
“Alex had a great senior year debut,” said head coach Andrew Ballock. “He is our only player with any varsity experience, so we kind of expected our first game to be a bit of a learning curve for a lot of our guys. We saw some positives, as well as things that we need to work on. I’m really excited to work with this group of guys. They may be young and inexperienced, but the combination of their hard work and coachability will allow for continued growth throughout this season.”
Monett is 0-1 on the season and were scheduled to play on Friday against Carthage.