Lady Jays overcome early deficit, beat Rolla 54-35

Jefferson City's Grafton Craighead shoots a 3-pointer during Monday's game against Rolla at Fleming Fieldhouse.
Jefferson City's Grafton Craighead shoots a 3-pointer during Monday's game against Rolla at Fleming Fieldhouse.

As they've gotten healthier during the last few weeks, the Jefferson City Lady Jays have developed some depth.

They needed it Monday night.

Battling foul trouble and with a key player on the bench due to an injury, Jefferson City broke open a close game with a big third quarter and defeated Rolla 54-35 at Fleming Fieldhouse.

"The wheels would have come off earlier in the season," Jefferson City coach Kay Foster said. "One thing about our kids, we talk about playing together and playing through adversity. It happened tonight, but we trusted each other.

"Getting a win like this would have been tough at the beginning of the season."

Jefferson City, playing without Hannah Linthacum, had Kara Daly go to the bench with her third foul less than four minutes into the game with the Lady Jays holding a 10-1 lead.

Rolla then put together a 9-0 run through the end of the first quarter to nearly midway through the second. Daly came back in and scored an immediate basket to give Jefferson City the lead at 12-10. But the Lady Bulldogs scored seven straight points to take their biggest lead of the night at 17-12.

"They took over the tempo of the game and that's something we didn't want them to do," Foster said.

Jefferson City then outscored Rolla 8-2 in the final two-plus minutes of the half to take a 20-19 advantage into halftime.

"What we went through at the beginning of the season was key tonight because the kids know they have the green light to shoot," Foster said. "I told some of the girls at halftime they had to not be hesitant to pull the trigger. They hit shots every day in practice, I have confidence in them."

Grafton Craighead sparked the late Jefferson City surge in the second quarter with a pair of 3-pointers, then hit two more from behind the arc in the third.

"Grafton hit some very big shots for us tonight," Foster said.

Emmarie Graham added four points in the third quarter for the Lady Jays, who outscored the Lady Bulldogs 19-7 to take a 39-26 advantage into the fourth.

"We knew we had to push the tempo, we wanted to score points to try to make them keep up with us," Foster said.

The Lady Jays were switching defenses in an attempt to confuse the Lady Bulldogs on offense.

"We have several defenses we've worked on," Foster said. "I've been at this long enough to know sometimes the defense you pick just stinks, so you have to switch to something else."

Jefferson City led by as many as 21 points in the fourth quarter.

Daly, who did not have a foul called on her in the second half, finished with a game-high 20 points for Jefferson City.

"She's a very smart player, that's Kara basketball," Foster said.

Craighead added 12 points.

Rebounding played a key part of the big second half as Jefferson City finished with a 20-8 edge on the boards in the final two quarters.

Sarah Linthacum paced the Lady Jays with 13 rebounds to go along with nine points.

Carli Libhart finished with 12 points to pace Rolla (8-3), ranked No. 5 in Class 5.

"They are an excellent team, I knew we would have to play hard for all four quarters," Foster said.

Jefferson City (14-1), ranked No. 3 in Class 6, will host St. Clair on Thursday night. The JV game will start at 5:30 p.m., followed by the varsity contest around 7 p.m.

In Monday's JV game, Rolla rallied to defeat Jefferson City 30-28.