North Mercer High School senior Bailey Owens joined four other standouts from northwest Missouri, in addition to players from Iowa and Kansas, in making up Buck Scheel’s recruiting class of 2017 to the women’s basketball program at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville.
Owens, a 5’10” forward, enters her senior season with the Lady Cardinals as the Wendy’s Heisman Award winner for the state of Missouri, having been named Class 1 All-State for all three years with Mercer. Â She has 1,658 points in three years at Mercer, including 293 three-pointers, second-most in state history (26 away from the record). Â Mercer, in Owens’ three seasons, has gone 82-4, with three of those losses ending the HDC champions season short of a trip to the Show-Me Showdown in Columbia. Â Two of Owens’ senior teammates, point guard Nicole Kost and shooting guard Lindsay Wyatt, signed recently with North Central Missouri College.
Other area standouts going to the Bearcats are South Nodaway senior guard Mallory McConkey, a 5’8″ product named all-Platte Valley Conference and first-team all-district a year ago, St. Joseph Benton 5’11” forward Tamia Stillman, and St. Joseph Central 5’7″ guard Jaelyn Haggard, an all-city, all-district, and all-conference selection for the past three years.
Zoie Hayward, a 5’8″ guard from Leavenworth High School (Leavenworth, KS), has helped lead her high school team to a pair of Class 5 titles, in addition to a runner-up finish in 2016. Â Kylie Coleman, a senior guard from Waukee, Iowa, will bring long-range shooting to the Bearcat roster, shooting 44 percent from behind the “3 line” in her junior year, while making 89 percent of her free throws.
