Jefferson City balanced in district semifinal win against Capital City

Jefferson City's Steven Samuels defends Capital City's Robert Gray during Tuesday's Class 6 District 9 Tournament game at Fleming Fieldhouse.
Jefferson City's Steven Samuels defends Capital City's Robert Gray during Tuesday's Class 6 District 9 Tournament game at Fleming Fieldhouse.

Jefferson City coach Tony Phillips thinks the Jays took a turn toward success in late January with a double-overtime loss to Logan-Rogersville, the fifth-ranked team in Class 5.

"I think they learned they can play with teams like that when we play the right way," Phillips said.

Jefferson City has won seven of its 10 games since that Jan. 21 defeat in the Lebanon Hall of Fame Classic, with the latest victory coming Tuesday in a 69-56 triumph against the Capital City Cavaliers in the semifinals of the Class 6 District 9 Tournament at Fleming Fieldhouse.

After the teams traded the lead for about a quarter and a half, the Jays' toughness at both ends of the floor prevailed.

Sterling DeSha, who scored a school-record 44 points in Jefferson City's 89-54 win against Capital City last week, scored his first bucket of Tuesday's game at the 2:40 mark of the second quarter.

That was the start of a 14-1 run that spanned the second and third quarters and gave the second-seeded Jays a lead the third-seeded Cavaliers couldn't overcome.

DeSha still led the Jays in scoring with 15 points and tied for a game-high seven rebounds with Kevion Pendelton.

"I felt like he still had to earn his 15 today," Capital City coach Darrin Young said. "He's still a very good player. Obviously he's going to be a college basketball player, but I thought we did a better job at containing him."

That first DeSha basket made the score 28-23 and Keith Driver later snatched away a pass that led to an Aaron Stallings layup for a 33-23 lead.

The Jays were up 33-24 at halftime and forced back-to-back turnovers to start the second half, resulting in layups for DeSha and Pendelton.

Steven Samuels then scored in transition and Michael Onunkwor took a pass from DeSha for an easy layup to finish off the run and widen the margin to 17 at 41-24 with 6:17 left in the third quarter.

"The majority of their production came from points off turnovers," Young said. "They're fueled by that. That's something that next year we've got to do a better job at ball handling, knowing how to ball fake, be strong with the ball, not getting the ball stripped out of our hands."

The lead reached 53-31 in the final minute of the third quarter after Driver finished off his eight-point quarter with a layup.

Driver made a pair of 3s for his other six points off the bench.

"That comes down to confidence," Young said. "When you have prepared more for those moments, those shots go in."

Blake Meredith, who led the Cavaliers with 15 points, finished off the third-quarter scoring with a corner 3 to make it 53-36.

After falling behind 61-39 a few minutes into the fourth quarter, Capital City answered back with a 13-2 run.

Corde Brown got it started with a layup, Thomas Kesete followed with a putback and Robert Gray scored inside on Capital City's next possession.

Brown capped it with a 3-pointer following a Mitch Renfrow steal, cutting it to 63-52 with 3:04 remaining.

But the Cavaliers were off the mark on three shots after Gray stripped the ball away from the Jays.

Six of the seven Cavaliers that took the floor scored. Kesete had 11 points and six rebounds, Brown scored 10 points and Renfrow made three 3s for nine points.

Capital City ends its second season as a program with a 12-12 record.

"I think we made a tremendous amount of progress," Young said. "I thought we did a much better job at understanding why I ask them to do certain things, why communication is important, understanding why when you get a paint touch you have to be ready to look to kick. Little things like that we definitely improved in those areas."

Jefferson City had five players come off the bench, with eight of the 10 players scoring.

Samuels had 14 points, Pendelton had 13, and Onunkwor finished with 12 points and six rebounds.

"I really believe that goes back to these kids' character and the culture that we're building," Phillips said. "They've got energy over there on the bench. That's a huge part of what we've been trying to build and they've bought into that. In practice they go hard against one another and in games they are each other's biggest cheerleaders."

Jefferson City (11-14) will face Helias at 7 p.m. Friday in the district tournament championship game at Rackers Fieldhouse.

The top-seeded Crusaders defeated No. 4 seed Sedalia Smith-Cotton 78-36 on Tuesday in the other semifinal.

Helias (19-6) has defeated Jefferson City 10 straight times, including twice this season.

"We've got a bunch of confident games and I think at this stage confidence is monumental," Phillips said.