DONIPHAN -- The Royals will play for the Ozark Foothills Conference regular season title on Monday.
Twin Rivers took in the past week of coaching and adapted on the fly against Doniphan's changing defense for a 60-50 win Thursday night.
"We had to adjust several offenses tonight because Doniphan did a good job of switching into a lot of defenses," Twin Rivers coach Kelly Westerfield said. "I thought the girls did a good job of listening and adjusting, getting the right people in the right places and making it work for us."
With the win, Twin Rivers (12-6, 5-0 OFC) only has Neelyville left on the conference schedule and plays at Neelyville on Monday.
Neelyville is also undefeated in the conference, but needs to beat Doniphan tonight to go into Monday 5-0 in the conference.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Twin Rivers' Katelyn South raced after a loose, slowly bouncing basketball that was headed toward her own bench. She passed half court at full speed, dipped down, and steps from crashing into her seated teammates she threw a blind, behind-the-back pass back into play.
Catey Hester happened to be in the perfect spot at center court and caught the pass as South tip-toed the sideline. Hester then fired a give-and-go pass back to South underneath the basket for a comfortable layup.
"I think I stomped my foot and screamed something and clapped my hands," Westerfield said. "It was pretty exciting. She is super athletic. Her and Hester work amazing together up there and as soon as I saw it go to Hester I knew it was going to go back to South and they were going to finish it up. That was a pretty sweet play."
It was the beginning of a seven point run that put Twin Rivers up by 12. It was also the final time that Doniphan (11-6, 3-1 OFC) was within striking distance of setting up its own undefeated conference showdown with Neelyville.
The Donettes pressed and trapped late but Twin Rivers avoided turnovers and made 7 of 8 free throws in the final minute of play.
"We got ourselves in a position where we had to do things defensively to try and catch up and we gave up easy baskets," Doniphan coach Larry Mueller said. "It just wasn't our night tonight."
Doniphan threw several different defenses at the Lady Royals, including 2-1-2 and a 1-3-1 zones that Twin Rivers took its time trying to pick apart, which isn't its style.
"When they were a little more packed in than spread out wide, that's when we had to work the ball the longest. I tried to emphasize to the girls that just because you are passing it around doesn't mean you are losing or that something is going wrong. You are just looking for a hole in a good defense," Westerfield said.
Twin Rivers had won four in a row since losing to Neelyville by 25 in the Lady Royals Classic, but lost in overtime to Kennett on Jan. 18. After the loss, Westerfield emphasized to the Royals that they need to focus more on making changes during a game and not just doing what they want to do, which is score fast.
"I tell the girls, just like we scout other teams and have gameplans, other teams have gameplans against us and I guarantee it is that we'll shoot a quick shot and they are going to get the boards," Westerfield said.
Doniphan first switched to a 2-1-2 zone early in the second quarter.
Careful and slow, Twin Rivers rotated the ball back and forth on the outside, back and forth, back and forth. The only field goals the Royals got the rest of the half were in transition, but they got enough of those, plus free throws, to put together a 10-2 run to close the half.
The Doniphan offense, meanwhile, was ice cold with one field goal in the final six minutes of the first half.
"The last several games we've been shooting 41 percent from 3-point land and that didn't happen tonight," Mueller said.
Facing their first double-digit deficit early in the third quarter, Doniphan tried a 1-3-1 zone. That, too, troubled Twin Rivers when the defense was able to get back and get set up.
Twin Rivers only had one field goal against it in the third quarter as Doniphan's offense improved.
Savannah Aaron's layup on a runout cut Twin Rivers' lead to four points going into the fourth quarter.
Soon, though, South pulled off that behind-the-back pass and the Royals closed out the game.
"They played hard tonight. This was probably our worst offensive performance of the year, output wise," Mueller said. "We normally shoot pretty well but we were cold tonight."