Lady Jays hang on to beat Pacific on Senior Night

Lexy Haug of the Lady Jays puts up a shot in the lane against Pacific's Devon Fleming during the first half of Tuesday night's game at Fleming Fieldhouse. Haug, who scored a team-high 13 points, was one of five seniors honored prior to Tuesday's game, which Jefferson City won 48-44 to improve to 21-3.
Lexy Haug of the Lady Jays puts up a shot in the lane against Pacific's Devon Fleming during the first half of Tuesday night's game at Fleming Fieldhouse. Haug, who scored a team-high 13 points, was one of five seniors honored prior to Tuesday's game, which Jefferson City won 48-44 to improve to 21-3.

It got a little too close for comfort.

The Jefferson City Lady Jays led by double digits at 48-37 with a little more than four minutes remaining in Tuesday night's game against the Pacific Lady Indians at Fleming Fieldhouse.

But the Lady Jays didn't score again in the battle of state-ranked teams and held on for a 48-44 victory on Senior Night.

"Lately, we've started off slow and picked it up as the game goes on," Lady Jays coach Brad Conway said. "Tonight, it was a fast start. But then we didn't take very good care of the basketball, we missed free throws and our decision-making wasn't very good."

The five seniors got the start for Jefferson City and helped the Lady Jays, ranked No. 4 in Class 5, to a 4-3 lead midway through the first quarter against the Lady Indians, ranked No. 6 in Class 4.

"They did fine out there," Conway said.

With the usual starting five in the game, Jefferson City stretched that advantage to 11-6 heading into the second quarter.

"We did a good job of containing them defensively in that first quarter," Conway said. "We guarded really well."

The second quarter was the best of the night for the Lady Jays. Jefferson City led by as many as 14 points, outscoring Pacific 16-9 to take a 27-15 advantage into intermission.

Pacific turned up the defensive pressure in the third quarter to battle back into the game.

"We didn't handle it like we normally do when we face it," Conway said. "We got caught standing around, watching a teammate get in trouble and not helping out."

The Lady Indians scored 13 of the first 17 points in the quarter to cut the Lady Jays' lead to 31-28 at the 4:10 mark. Jefferson City got back on track the rest of the quarter to push its lead to 40-32 with eight minutes to play.

A free throw by Caitlin Anderson with 4:30 left gave Jefferson City a 48-37 lead. Jefferson City missed the front end of three 1-and-1 opportunities in the final minute to help Pacific close the gap.

Devon Fleming tossed in 22 points to lead Pacific (21-4), 20 of which came in the second half. Kyndra Morgan added 14, 11 of which came in the first half.

Lexy Haug, one of Jefferson City's five seniors, scored 13 points and pulled down six rebounds to lead the Lady Jays. Haug, Shaina Anderson, Alaina Allsbury, Sydney Crockett and Sarah Hirst started in their final regular-season home game.

"It's always good to win on Senior Night," Conway said.

Jefferson City (21-3) wraps up the regular season Thursday night at Hickman.

The Lady Jays are the No. 1 seed and host in next week's Class 5 District 8 Tournament. Jefferson City opens against Troy at 5 p.m. Monday.

"We just need to play like we prepare and we'll be all right," Conway said.

Jefferson City won Tuesday night's JV game 39-20 to improve to 11-7.

Rebecca Johanns led the Lady Jays with eight points.