The energy was apparent from the start.
Starting just after the opening tip Tuesday night, the Capital City Lady Cavaliers and the Jefferson City Lady Jays scrapped and battled from end to end at Capital City High School.
That energy didn’t necessarily convert into offense, however, as the Lady Jays defeated the Lady Cavaliers 37-17 in Central Missouri Activities Conference action.
“This is an emotional game, all the kids know each other, have played against each other,” Jefferson City coach Kay Foster said.
Gallery: Capital City girls Basketball vs. Jefferson City
After a series of trips up and down the floor, Capital City got on the scoreboard first on a basket by Danijah Fluellen with 5:15 left in the first quarter to give the Lady Cavaliers their only lead of the game at 2-0.
Jefferson City then scored the next eight points to take the lead for good and led 12-6 after the first quarter.
Hannah Linthacum had six first-quarter points for the Lady Jays, while providing an imposing presence on the defensive end. Capital City finished with nine turnovers in the first quarter.
“We were timid with Hannah down in the paint, we didn’t want to get our shots blocked,” Capital City coach Ashley Agee said. “We just weren’t attacking the basket at all, we use two or three dribbles and pass it instead of getting a little deeper, then kicking it out.”
A basket by Aslyn Marshall with 5:25 to go in the second quarter pulled Capital City to within three at 14-11. Those were the last points the Lady Cavaliers would score in 14-plus minutes of game time.
“We spend a lot of our time at practice on defense,” Foster said. “It’s been ahead of our offense all season, it’s kept us in a lot of games.”
Jefferson City scored the final eight points of the second quarter to take a 22-11 advantage into halftime. Capital City then went 0-of-9 from the field and missed a pair of free throws to go scoreless in the third quarter as Jefferson City extended its lead to 30-11.
“When we executed our stuff, we were spot on,” Foster said. “When we didn’t execute well, we struggled to score.”
Agee was pleased with the performance of her defense during the scoring drought.
“Defense has to be our strong suit, we know we are going to struggle offensively a lot of nights,” she said. “We don’t have any true shooters right now, we’re trying to develop them.”
Fluellen got the Lady Cavaliers back on the board with 7:22 left in the the game on a short jumper to make it 30-13.
Jefferson City outscored Capital City 7-6 in the fourth quarter.
“We did a heck of a job defensively,” Agee said. “To hold them to 37 is a really good effort. We need to remember this time last year we lost to them with a running clock.”
“Ashley has some nice kids coming up, this game is going to be more and more competitive going forward,” Foster said.
Linthacum finished with 13 points and 14 rebounds for Class 5 No. 9 Jefferson City (14-6 overall, 3-0 CMAC). Lyssa Sportsman added nine points of the bench for Jefferson City, who will play Thursday at Rock Bridge.
Fluellen and Natalie Allison had six points each for Capital City (4-17, 0-4). The Lady Cavaliers will play today at O’Fallon Christian.
In Tuesday night’s JV game, Jefferson City defeated Capital City 35-25.