Blair Oaks girls share wealth offensively, beat Lady Jays 78-53

Jefferson City’s Lyssa Sportsman drives the ball down court against Autumn Bax of Blair Oaks during Thursday night’s game in Wardsville. (Ethan Weston/News Tribune)
Jefferson City’s Lyssa Sportsman drives the ball down court against Autumn Bax of Blair Oaks during Thursday night’s game in Wardsville. (Ethan Weston/News Tribune)

WARDSVILLE - Three offensive weapons proved to be the difference.

Blair Oaks had three players score in double figures Thursday night as the Lady Falcons downed the Jefferson City Lady Jays 78-53.

“When you can get three players to attack like that, it’s hard to defend because you just don’t know where it’s coming from,” Blair Oaks coach Brandon Moore said. “Kudos to those three for being super aggressive, having confidence and playing through contact. It was a physical game tonight.”

There were a total of 36 fouls called in the game, 18 on each team.

“We couldn’t play defense the way we like to play defense,” Jefferson City coach Kay Foster said. “We play physical, we committed fouls absolutely, but we couldn’t play our style of basketball. It was not to our advantage.”

Hannah Linthacum of the Lady Jays picked up her second foul a little more than 90 seconds into the contest and spent the remainder of the first quarter on the bench.

“The way the game was called took us out of our game,” Foster said. “The kids fought through it, but that was the game.”

The Lady Falcons closed the quarter on a 13-2 run during the final 3:30 to take a 22-10 lead. Blair Oaks led by double digits the remainder of the contest.

Blair Oaks closed the second quarter on a 10-0 run in the last 2:16 to take a 44-23 advantage into halftime.

“We didn’t execute what we wanted to do defensively,” Foster said. “We just have some players that haven’t played a lot, so we need to do some teaching and go back to basics.”

Mallorie Fick had 20 points in the first half for the Lady Falcons on her way to a 34-point night.

“She’s been creeping up on getting a 30-point game,” Moore said. “She’s gotten some different looks defensively this season and she has to play strong and fight through that stuff. She did that tonight.”

Emma Wolken added 12 points in the half, repeatedly slashing through the lane to the basket. She finished the game with 20.

“She does a great job of collapsing the defense because she is so good at penetrating,” Moore said. “She needs to continue to do that because it makes us so much better on the offensive end.”

Moore believes the Lady Falcons’ strong offensive output was a product of how they played on defense.

“We have changed our mentality in the past week or so to be more aggressive on the defensive end,” he said. “We’re basically playing man-to-man most of the time and that helps us be more aggressively on the offensive end.”

Blair Oaks took a 59-36 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Lady Falcons extended their lead to as many as 30 points in the fourth quarter.

“All I was looking for was for us to compete and if we could do that, good things would happen and they did,” Moore said. “This was by far our best game of the season. We played so hard for four quarters.”

Autumn Bax was the third Lady Falcon in double figures. She had a double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds.

“She’s getting used to the physicality of this game from volleyball,” Moore said. “It’s a tough transition for any athlete. But she’s starting to come around into the basketball mentality.”

Linthacum finished with a double-double for Jefferson City with 22 points and 13 rebounds.

Lyssa Sportsman added 16 points for the Lady Jays.

“(Sportsman) really played hard,” Foster said.

Jefferson City is searching for more options on the offensive end.

“The other kids need to do more offensively than they’re doing right now,” Foster said. “We’re working with them to look for their shots, but we’re doing a lot of dribbling around the perimeter instead of attacking the basket.

“They do a pretty good job of getting it inside to Hannah, but they’re also missing a lot of opportunities to score for themselves.”

Jefferson City (0-6) is back in action Monday against St. Joseph Central in the 12 Courts of Christmas in Kansas City.

Blair Oaks (5-4) will play Tuesday at Fatima in the opener of a girls-boys varsity doubleheader.

In Thursday night’s JV game, Blair Oaks defeated Jefferson City 41-34. Baley Rackers had 10 points to lead the Lady Falcons, while Izzy Schmidt and Deyja Mayes had eight points each for the Lady Jays.