There were specific things Helias coach Garrett Wiggans wanted his Lady Crusaders to focus on Wednesday night.
"Just stuff we've worked on in practice, the basics: transition, half-court offense and half-court defense," he said. "The message before the game was, 'How well can we do those things?'"
As it turns out, pretty well.
Helias scored the first 19 points of the game and dominated from start to finish in a 68-18 Central Missouri Activities Conference win against the Sedalia Smith-Cotton Tigers at Rackers Fieldhouse.
The Helias offense was patient in the early going, moving the ball around to get good shots. The Lady Crusaders made their first five shots from the floor.
"We worked on making a pass with pressure in our face or trying to finish a basket with a lot of pressure," Wiggans said, "and not being careless with the basketball and turning it over."
Helias set goals for Wednesday's game. One was to have seven or fewer turnovers, and the Lady Crusaders had seven. Another was to shoot well from the free-throw line, and they were 9-of-13 for 69.2 percent.
"We're setting short-term goals to catapult us into districts, to achieve that long-term goal," Wiggans said.
After their first missed shot of the game, Helias moved from a half-court offense to a transition offense. In a span of 94 seconds, Adalyn Koelling, Kylie Bernskoetter and Brooke Reutter each got a steal in the half-court defense and went coast-to-coast for layups.
Those three baskets extended the Helias lead to 19-0 with 2:41 left in the opening quarter.
"We tell the girls all the time, if you play good half-court man-to-man defense, it's going to lead to transition points," Wiggans said. "We proved that tonight."
Bailey Brown ended Smith-Cotton's scoring drought with a basket in the lane with 2:23 left in the opening quarter. Brown finished with a team-high six points for the Tigers (0-8, 0-3 CMAC).
Helias led 21-4 at the end of the first quarter and used a 12-0 run in the second quarter to go into halftime with a 45-8 advantage. The Lady Crusaders shot 60 percent (18-of-30) from the floor in the first 16 minutes.
Starting in the second quarter, Wiggans only made line changes when making substitutions, always a blend of starters and bench players.
"In practice, we do it all the time, we mix and match," Wiggans said. "But in a game, it's important to get girls experience and playing time. We have four freshmen, and they need to get that experience and playing time in a varsity basketball game, no matter who you're playing."
Helias led 60-15 at the end of the third quarter, leading to a running clock for the entire fourth quarter.
Bernskoetter led Helias with 19 points, shooting 8-of-9 from the floor. Koelling added 11 points, while Lindsey Byers and Mikah Edwards each scored nine points.
Wiggans was pleased to see the Lady Crusaders move the ball around to score, rather than having a player start on the perimeter and drive the ball toward the basket for two points.
"A lot of high school basketball players want to score when the ball is already in their hands," Wiggans said. "These girls do a good job of finding ways to score when the ball is not in their hands."
Nine of Helias' 10 players scored in the win, and nine finished with at least one rebound.
"If you pull down rebounds, play good defense, get some deflections and steals and make good passes, all those things are going to help a basketball team win," Wiggans said.
Helias (11-2, 2-0 CMAC), ranked No. 2 in Class 5, will get a rematch against Class 6 No. 3 Jefferson City (14-1, 2-0 CMAC) on Monday at Fleming Fieldhouse. The JV game starts at 6 p.m., followed by the varsity contest at 7:30 p.m.
The Lady Jays defeated the Lady Crusaders 62-40 last month in the Jefferson Bank Holiday Hoops Invitational.
"We're going to go into that basketball game with the intent to win," Wiggans said. "After the first game, the girls were a little disappointed that they didn't show better, so I would hope to see a little different Crusader team."
There was no JV game Wednesday.