WRIGHT CITY – School may not have been in session Friday, but plenty of learning transpired on the court during the second annual Mayor’s Cup game between Wright City and Liberty Christian Academy that night.

The Wildcats quickly picked up that it wasn’t a bad idea to keep the ball in the hands of Dillon Seabaugh.

The 6-foot-1 fleet-footed senior guard repeatedly found ways to get to the basket, slashing his way to a career-high 27 points and leading the hosts to a 77-62 victory over the neighboring rival Eagles.

The win ushered in a trophy presentation by Mayor Dan Rowden that had the Wildcats and Coach Ryan Benz feeling pretty “awesome” in front of a big crowd that didn’t mind trekking through wintery conditions to witness the showdown between the two schools that are located less than a mile apart.

“Winning this game again was one of the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year, so obviously it’s a big positive,” Benz said. “The atmosphere was awesome, the fans were awesome and our student section was awesome and never stopped making noise the whole night.”

Seabaugh was awesome too.

He scored 12 points in the second quarter, which allowed the Wildcats build a semi-comfortable cushion at the end of the first half. They went into the locker room in front 36-24 after leading 12-9 after the opening period.

“I don’t know if it ever necessarily felt like we controlled things, because both teams were missing a ton of bunnies underneath the basket and LCA kept making runs,” Benz said. “but obviously Dillon was a huge factor for us. He took over when we needed him to take over and stepped up when we needed him to step up.”

But Seabaugh wasn’t the only player to have a monster offensive night or step up for his team.

Junior forward Josh Dames poured in a game-high 31 points and helped the back-to-back Missouri Christian Schools Athletic Association State champion Eagles hang around throughout.

And while the visitors never saw the lead in the second half, an old-fashioned three-point play by Dames did trim their deficit to single digits at 59-52 early in the fourth.

First-year LCA Coach Tanner Meyer said he hoped Friday’s game teaches his squad to be more aggressive when rebounding.

“Boxing out has been our biggest thing we struggle with,” Meyer said. “Boxing out and hitting layups.

“But this was a fun one tonight and Josh was definitely a gamer for us.”

Joining Dames in double figures for LCA was sophomore guard Cole Christian, who scored 14 of his 18 points in the second half.

Michael Foran added four points, Caleb Schneider three and Dakota Ball, Brayden Wilmsemeyer and David Vaclavik two apiece as the Eagles fell to 15-7 overall before rebounding with a 73-38 victory at home against Crosspoint Christian on Monday, which improved them to 13-1 in Metro Conference play.

Along with Seabaugh, the Wildcats had nine players put points on the board against LCA.

JJ McRoberts scored nine of his 14 points in the first half. Djuane Le’Noir and Branden Contreras had seven points apiece and John Pezold and Brennan Logan each put in six with the latter coming off the bench to hit a pair of clutch 3s.

Also contributing were Kyle Johnson with five points, Christian Ebersohl with three and Hayden Beck with two.

Wildcats Drop Hermann Opener

No. 7 seeded Wright City hoped to play spoiler, but fell 70-58 against No. 2 Linn in the opening round of the 41st annual Hermann Invitational Tournament Tuesday.

The Wildcats trailed 15-14 after a quarter and 31-29 at halftime before being outscored 16-8 by the Wildcats of Linn in the third.

McRoberts had a team-high 20 points. Seabaugh had 11 and Contreras added 10.

Caleb Maassen produced a game-best 21 points for Linn with Alek Peters chipping in for 16.

In the tournament’s other opening round games, No. 1 St. James took out No. 8 California 78-43; No. 4 Montgomery County topped No. 5 St. Clair 50-36 and the No. 3 host Bearcats won 50-46 over No. 6 New Haven.

The Wildcats, who now hold an 8-6 overall record, play New Haven in the consolation bracket on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

It’ll be the second meeting between the teams in nine days with the Shamrocks winning 64-63 at Wright City Jan. 21.

Thursday’s winner advances to the consolation championship, which is slated for Saturday at 4 p.m.