Good shooting, excellent passing, hard work on the offensive boards - the Jefferson City Lady Jays did it all Monday night.
Megan Foster led three Lady Jays in double figures with 22 points as Jefferson City defeated Waynesville 69-50 at Fleming Fieldhouse.
"I was pretty pleased with the way we executed on offense," Jefferson City coach Brad Conway said. "We had some people step up and knock down some shots."
Jefferson City got off to a good start, opening with an 8-0 run in the first 3:35 of the game. On Waynesville's first seven possessions, the Lady Tigers were 0-of-2 from the field with five turnovers.
"We did a good job in transition early," Conway said.
But Waynesville came back to cut the deficit to two before a Lexi Haug basket on a nice pass from Foster with :10 left gave Jefferson City a 19-15 lead heading into the second quarter.
After taking a couple of days off after last week's third-place finish in the Holiday Hoops Invitational, Conway said the Lady Jays stressed the passing game at practice Saturday.
"Our execution starts with getting open and making the right passes to the open player," he said. "We did a really good job of seeing people, seeing them early, and getting into situations where we could get an easy basket."
Of course, you can take it too far.
"Sometimes, we're almost too unselfish," Conway said. "We make that extra pass when we don't need to."
The teams swapped points early in the second quarter before Jefferson City went on a 10-1 run to push its lead to double digits at 35-22 with 2:33 left in the half.
Jefferson City's biggest lead of the half was 14 points, that coming on a Foster steal and layup at the buzzer that gave the Lady Jays a 39-24 advantage at the break. Foster finished with 13 points in the second quarter.
Jefferson City led by as many as 17 points in the third quarter and took a 55-39 advantage into the final period. An 8-0 run midway through the fourth quarter gave Jefferson City its biggest lead of the night at 68-47.
Foster finished 9-of-10 from the field and hit both of her free throws in the contest. Nicole Martin finished with 18 points despite battling foul trouble for much of the game, while Caitlin Anderson chipped in with 15 points.
Kallie Bildner did a majority of the offensive damage for Waynesville (7-3), totaling 29 points and pulling down 14 rebounds.
"We had a few too many breakdowns against Bildner and she's a good player who will make you pay for that." Conway said. "She gets rebounds, she's a good shooter. We lost sight of her a couple of times, we didn't get anyone on her on rebounds."
It was Jefferson City's first win at home this season and just the second time the Lady Jays had played at Fleming Fieldhouse.
"It's great to play on our home floor," Conway said.
Jefferson City (10-3) will play Friday against Notre Dame de Sion in Kansas City.
In Monday's JV game, Sydney Crockett totaled 13 points for Jefferson City (5-2) in a 43-10 win against Waynesville.