It felt like the lead should have been bigger.
The Jefferson City Lady Jays had the much better of the play in the opening quarter of Thursday night's Class 5 District 8 title game against the Holt Lady Indians at Fleming Fieldhouse. But the Lady Jays held just an 8-2 lead.
The opening few minutes of the second quarter fixed things on the scoreboard. The Lady Jays opened the quarter with a 10-0 run and went on to a 52-21 victory to claim the district title, their first since the 2010-11 season.
"Things really started to click," Jefferson City coach Brad Conway said. "That second quarter really was the big difference in the game."
With the win, Jefferson City (24-3) advances to Wednesday night's sectional against Webster Groves (17-11) at Maryville University in St. Louis. Webster Groves advanced with a 60-59 victory Thursday night against Cor Jesu Academy to win the District 7 title.
The Lady Jays, ranked No. 4 in Class 5 by the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association, was the prohibitive favorite to win the district. Jefferson City was the only one of the four teams in the tournament with a winning record.
But they still had to go out and win two games to win the district crown.
"We didn't talk about any of that, we didn't talk about anybody's record, we just wanted to concentrate on the stuff that got us here," Conway said. "The things we started working on at the first practice Halloween night."
The biggest of those things was playing strong defense. Conway didn't think the Lady Jays had played their best on the defensive side in the past few games.
"It's been OK, but it's not like it was at the start and the middle of the season," he said. "We did a lot of talking about it, we didn't really work on the physical side.
"Tonight, I think we got back to where we were around Christmas time with both our press and our halfcourt defense."
Holt committed eight turnovers in the second quarter as Jefferson City used its press to its fullest advantage.
"Once we got that going, that ignited us," Conway said.
Micah Linthacum had four points in Jefferson City's 10-0 run to start the quarter, capped by a 3-pointer by Lexy Haug to make it 18-2 with 5:20 left before halftime.
The Lady Jays led by as many as 21 points in the the quarter and took a 29-9 lead into halftime.
Jefferson City continued to pull away in the third quarter and led 44-17 heading into the final period. The Lady Jays scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter, which was played with a running clock.
Holt finished with more turnovers (22) than points (21) in the game.
"We were smothering them," Conway said. "We knew they had some girls who could shoot, but we did a nice job all over the floor."
Nicole Griesenauer finished with 11 points to lead Holt (12-14), which had just three players score in the game.
Greta Haarmann came off the bench to lead Jefferson City with 12 points. Linthacum added 10. Caitlin Anderson pulled down seven rebounds to lead the Lady Jays, who finished with a 34-18 edge on the boards.
The sectional game is scheduled to start at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. Jefferson City defeated Webster Groves 59-36 on Jan. 26 at Fleming Fieldhouse.