KENNETT, Mo. -- Kennett cut a 15-point, third-quarter deficit down to five with 7 1/2 minutes left Tuesday night but was unable to put together the finish it needed to rally past Poplar Bluff.
The Mules opened SEMO Conference play with a 70-52 road win by closing the game on a 20-7 run.
"I thought Kennett played harder the second half," Poplar Bluff coach William Durden said. "We could have taken it to 20 and instead Kennett played a little bit harder and got us out of our game. We started playing out of our heads late in the third quarter and we've got to be better than that."
Poplar Bluff led 46-31 when Joseph Hardimon left the game after suffering an ankle injury with 3:38 left in the third quarter. Kennett followed with 13-4 spurt to cut the deficit to 50-44 by the start of the fourth period.
Kennett senior Ty Ellis hit a free throw to cut the deficit to 50-45 but Poplar Bluff followed with a 9-2 run to pad its lead and led by at least nine points the rest of the way.
"We stopped doing what brought us back," Kennett coach Lennies McFerren said. "It wasn't anything else but that. I've heard people say, 'They can't stand prosperity.' That's exactly what happened tonight. We did what we needed to do and showed people what we can do. Then we went back to playing individual basketball, which is what makes me so frustrated."
The Mules (7-7, 1-0 SEMO) had not played in 17 days while Kennett (4-11, 0-4) was coming off a 4-point win over state-ranked Saxony Lutheran.
"They controlled the tempo of that game and I wanted to make sure they didn't do that tonight," Durden said.
The Mules elected to extend its defense beyond half court for much of the first half.
"I saw Kennett only played seven or eight so we tried to push the tempo and make fatigue a factor late in the game," Durden said. "We ran kids in and out and gave a lot of kids an opportunity to play."
Kennett played Poplar Bluff to a 7-7 stalemate for the first three minutes before the Mules ended the first quarter on an 11-4 run to move ahead 18-11 by the start of the second quarter.
Poplar Bluff increased its lead as large as 12 in the final minute of the first half and enjoyed a 31-21 lead at the halftime break.
McFerren contributed much of the first-half deficit to turnovers his team committed when they attempted to play an up-tempo pace with the Mules.
"We can't play that way," McFerren said. "We don't have the athletes to do that. Our players think they can and we dig ourselves in a hole trying to play that way."
Dominique Hardimon paced Poplar Bluff with 21 points while Xander Martin and Rodney Houston each scored 13. Martin and Nik Rowland, who scored seven points, fouled out early.
Joseph Hardimon, who scored all five of his points in the second quarter, remained on the bench with ice on his ankle throughout the fourth quarter.
"He got bumped and rolled his ankle," Durden said. "I don't know how serious it is."
Patrick Maddox paced Kennett with 24 points.
The Mules return home for the first time since the Poplar Bluff Showdown when they host state-ranked Cape Central for homecoming Friday. The Tigers, 15-1 and No. 4 in Class 4 of the latest state coaches poll, beat Poplar Bluff 46-41 in the opening round of the conference tournament.
"We let a game against them slip away in the SEMO Conference Tournament," Durden said. "We had them by eight or 10 with a minute to go in the third quarter and kind of folded. We've been trying to fix some of the things we did wrong in the SEMO Conference Tournament. I think we are close, but Cape Central is on a roll right now so we will have to play our best."
It's the first of three games in five days as the Mules host Twin Rivers on Saturday and New Madrid Central on Monday.
Poplar Bluff beat Kennett 48-40 in the junior varsity game.