Coming off its first loss of the season and trailing at the intermission, Carl Junction shifted the momentum in its favor permanently in a dominating third quarter on the way to a 56-46 win over Rogers in the opening round of the Freeman Lady Eagle Classic on Thursday.
“It was big for our kids and especially for our youth,” Carl Junction coach Brad Shorter said about bouncing back from their first loss with a win over Rogers. “We have a lot of experience from last year, but we still are in that position where we have to understand that we have to come out and play our best game every night. We can’t just go through the motions because things aren’t going to go our way, myself included. We can do a lot of great things with this group if they play together and play hard every night.”
Carl Junction (4-1) matches up with Blue Valley North in the semifinals at 9 p.m. on Friday.
GAME ACTION
Carl Junction got off to a good start in the win, which hasn’t always been the case through the early portion of the season. The Bulldogs jumped out to a 10-4 lead through the first five minutes of action, with Destiny Buerge accounting for eight of the 10 points.
Rogers went on a quick 9-0 run on a 3-pointer from Perla Morales and six points from Ava Maner on a three-point play and a 3-ball from the wing to send the Mounties into the second period with a 13-10 lead.
“I was much more pleased with our effort to start the game, and that is something that we have been focusing on,” Shorter said. “But, it’s a game of ups and downs. They are going to go on a few runs. Our job is to limit those. I think the speed and pace of (the game) is something we had to adjust to pretty quickly. Once we did, that was a big piece of our success—settling into the game and almost catching our second wind, really.”
The lead changed hands four more times in the second quarter with Kennedi Blockburger splashing home a 3-pointer just before the horn to send Rogers into the intermission with a 26-24 advantage.
“We are still working on our rotations and we were talking to our younger kids about knowing their responsibilities on a few possessions,” Shorter said. “Also, (Maner) picked up three fouls, so our idea was to immediately try to post her up and isolate her on Destiny. We also wanted to get Kylie (Scott) isolated out along the perimeter and get Hali (Shorter) and Klohe (Burk) spotted up. … I think we were able to do that. We did it with a few sets out of our continuity offense and were able to take advantage of some of those mismatch opportunities they had on us because they were in foul trouble.”
The Bulldogs took control of the contest with an 11-1 run out of the locker room. Buerge started things off with a 3-ball from the wing to give Carl Junction the lead before Burk followed with a 3-pointer of her own to make the score 30-26 with 4:40 on the clock. Scott closed the run with an inside score followed by a triple of her own to give Carl Junction a 35-27 lead with less than four minutes to play in the period.
The Bulldogs used a putback score off an offensive board from Scott, a three-point play from Buerge and a charity from Scott to close out the third quarter on a 17-3 run for a 41-29 lead.
“I thought Hali did a great job of rebounding on the backside and Kylie did a monster job on the boards,” Shorter said of his team’s play in the third quarter. “They put us in some tough positions (defensively) … but we were able to adjust some things and tweak them just a little bit. Our pressure up top is important and our ability to take vision away with our hands. … It got better and I think that was a big key for us.”
The Mounties cut the lead to six early in the fourth quarter on back-to-back 3-pointers from Maner and Morales but a 6-0 run fueled by drive from Scott and a pair of baskets from Buerge pushed the Carl Junction lead back to 12, 47-35, midway though the period. Rogers never made a serious run at the lead through the remainder of the contest.
SCORING LEADERS
Buerge led all scorers with a game-high 32 points, including three 3-pointers. Scott finished in double figures with 17 points.
Maner and Morales each had 13 points to lead Rogers.
