It hasn’t been the start to the season the Jefferson City Lady Jays wanted.
But they’re trying not to let it get to them as they prepare for the Jefferson Bank Holiday Hoops Tournament.
“Part of being good is working through your frustration, there’s not a team in Missouri that doesn’t have frustrations through the season,” Lady Jays coach Kay Foster said as Jefferson City (0-7) gets set to take on the Hickman Kewpies (7-1) in the opening round of the tournament at 5:30 p.m. today at Capital City High School. “We knew this could be a possibility, we knew that. I really feel we should have a couple of wins, but we didn’t get them.
“We just need to get through this storm and I truly believe we will be off to the races. We know we have some work to do.”
“It’s come down to the little things a lot of the time.
“We have to be able to pass, catch and dribble the ball,” Foster said. “It’s a little bit of fundamentals and a little bit of mental.”
The Lady Jays, who graduated three Division I players among four senior starters last year, are attempting to work through the frustration of the slow start with an inexperienced group.
“We’re trying to get them to stay together, not point fingers at anyone except themselves,” Foster said. “Hopefully when we get to the end of the season, we can look back at this time and kind of smile and think it was good for us.
“You have to look at what the bad does to make you good.”
The Lady Jays may be bolstered by the potential return of starting point guard Emmarie Graham, who has been out the past few games.
Hannah Linthacum, a junior who has committed to play at Missouri, leads Jefferson City in scoring and rebounding.
“She should have different goals than everyone else, she can do things other kids can’t do,” Foster said. “And that puts more expectations on you and for the most part, she’s lived up to those.
“She’s going in the right direction.”
Jefferson City is trying to take advantage of playing Hickman, a Central Missouri Activities Conference foe.
“We always play for the end of the season and we play Hickman in the last week of the regular season on a Thursday and there’s a good chance our first district game will be on that Saturday,” Foster said. “So we can work on getting a good scout on Hickman now and not necessarily have to put a lot of time in it later when we’re trying to get ready for the postseason to start.”
Foster points to Hickman as an example of what she is trying to accomplish.
“The last two years, they went through what we’re going through this year,” she said. “We have problems taking our game plan and executing it on the floor and they had some of that. But now they are playing a lot of juniors and seniors and are being successful.”
Foster believes it’s a balanced tournament field.
“You could literally have a hat with these eight teams in it and pull out the winner because there is so much equity spread among the teams,” Foster said.