The Jefferson City Lady Jays dedicated time at practice during recent days to defense.
It was time well spent.
Jefferson City forced 12 Cape Girardeau Notre Dame turnovers in the first quarter Saturday afternoon on its way to a 64-37 victory against the Lady Bulldogs in the Central Bank Shootout at Rackers Fieldhouse.
"We spent 20-30 minutes in practice the last few days on nothing but how we wanted to defend them," Jefferson City coach Brad Conway said. "That paid big dividends."
Jefferson City jumped out to a 14-0 lead midway through the first quarter. Cape Notre Dame's first eight possessions ended with three one-and-done trips and five turnovers.
"We got steals, we got deflections, we did things to not let them get back on defense," Conway said. "That was very important."
Conway was animated on the sideline in the opening quarter, getting into defensive stances and encouraging the Lady Jays to turn up the pressure.
"I was really trying to get them to focus, to be almost an extra person the floor," he said. "I thought if we got early stops, take it to them in the first quarter, it was going to be tough for them to come back."
Cape Notre Dame got a 3-pointer from Julia Williams at the 3:15 mark to make it 14-3. Jefferson City then closed the quarter on a 13-0 run to take a 27-3 advantage.
Kara Daly led the Lady Jays with 12 first-quarter points. Caitlin Anderson added eight, while Hannah Nilges had the other seven.
A basket by Sarah Linthcum with a little more than three minutes left in the half pushed Jefferson City's lead to 35-5.
"The first 14-15 minutes were some of the best we played," Conway said.
But
"After that, it was going through the motions," he said. "We got sloppy with the basketball, we got careless defensively, we lost our focus.
"You cannot afford to do that against good teams. Hopefully we learned from that."
Cape Notre Dame closed the half on a 5-1 spurt to cut Jefferson City's lead to 36-10.
The Lady Bulldogs outscored the Lady Jays 12-8 in the third quarter to make it 44-28. Jefferson City led by as many as 29 points in the fourth quarter.
Cape Notre Dame committed just six turnovers in the final three quarters.
Lexi Rubel scored 13 points, all in the second half, to lead Cape Notre Dame (14-6). Williams added 11.
Anderson finished with a game-high 20 points for Jefferson City. Daly added 19, while Nilges had 12. The Lady Jays were 26-of-41 (63 percent) from the field in the game.
Linthacum totaled seven rebounds to lead the Lady Jays, who finished with a 27-13 edge on the boards.
Jefferson City (20-0, ranked No. 1 in Class 5) is back in action Thursday at Rock Bridge.
The JV game will start at 6 p.m., with the varsity contest to follow around 7:30 p.m.