It was a typical basketball Jamboree for the Jefferson City Lady Jays.
"There were things we did well, there were things we need to clean up," Jefferson City coach Brad Conway said after the Lady Jays faced Helias and Blair Oaks in action Friday night at Helias. "It was good to get some game action. Having the officials and the crowd, it was a good test before the start of the season."
Jefferson City went 2-0 in the Jamboree, which featured two games of three six-minute quarters. Not that it really mattered.
"Not at all," Conway said. "I guess we keep the score because of the fans, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything. We didn't play attention to it, we just want to play hard until the horn blows."
The Lady Jays opened with an 18-11 victory against the Lady Crusaders.
Jefferson City jumped out to a 9-1 lead after the opening quarter and led 16-7 after two. The Lady Jays' offense was hampered by turnovers, committing 13 in the 18 minutes.
"We had some kids passing up good shots to get the ball to players who maybe didn't have as good a shot," Conway said.
On the other end, the Jefferson City defense forced 10 Helias turnovers.
The Lady Jays then bested the Lady Falcons 26-19.
A 3-pointer by Sarah Linthacum at the buzzer gave Jefferson City a 10-2 lead at the end of the first quarter. Caitlin Anderson then scored five points in the second quarter as Jefferson City led 17-10.
The Lady Jays led by as many as nine points early in the final period. Blair Oaks got to within one at 20-19 before Jefferson City closed the scrimmage on a 6-0 run.
It was a chance to experiment.
"We were looking at different combinations, it gave us a chance to see some things we can't see working against ourselves in practice," Conway said.
One thing Jefferson City, normally a man-to-man squad, worked on was its zone defense.
"We've had to do it in some games and this was a chance to work on it," Conway said. "We had some combinations out there when it looked pretty good and other combinations, it wasn't."
The Lady Jays played without starting post player Micah Linthacum, who was out with an injured back. Her playing status remains a question.
"She could be back next week, the week after, we just don't know yet," Conway said.
Hannah Nilges of the Lady Jays hurt her hip on a hard fall in the scrimmage against Helias and her status for Tuesday night's scheduled season opener at Francis Howell is unknown.