Jackson cruises, downs Dexter at home

On the same day the Jackson Indians received the one-seed in the Class 6 District 1 Tournament, the Indians cruised to a 51-31 win over the Dexter Bearcats on Monday at Jackson High School.

The Indians jumped out to a 13-7 lead after the first, but after turning up the pressure with a 2-2-1 press in the second quarter, the Indians led 24-11 at halftime.

“It’s our go-to thing,” Indians coach Adam Stoneking said. “That’s what we like to do. We like to get up and make things difficult for the offensive team.”

The Indians played a sharp defensive game for the entirety of the night and Stoneking credits the awareness of his team for their success.

“We did a great job of getting deflections,” Stoneking said. ‘We talked about how the ball pressure up top creates the deflections in the second line. We’ve done a really good job the last week.”

Jackson won the third quarter 18-8 to lead 42-19 heading to the fourth before winning the game 51-31.

A big part of the Indians’ offensive attack was looking for senior Katie Waller in the post. Waller finished with a game-high 18 points in the win.

“She doesn’t really practice in the post very often,” Stoneking said. “But, they went box-and-one in the first quarter and so we just put her in our high-low offense and so that way she can just post up and we don’t have to worry about running her off three or four screens and wearing her out.”

Camryn Alsdorf followed up Waller’s 18-point night with 16 points of her own. Aubrey Brothers had 7 points, Holland Guilliams and Lillian Gibbs had 3 points and Maci Wendel and Summer Lee had 2 points.

Stoneking said he hopes to see his team improve on boxing out as they enter the final stretch.

“We do a good job of creating long shots and sometimes we do a bad job of making sure we get the rebounds,” Stoneking said. “If we want to make any kind of postseason run we have to clear that up.”

Dexter was led by Kate Nichols who had 13 points in the loss. Abbi Lloyd had 7 points, Caitlin Giles had 4 points, Maddie Glaus had 3 points and Avery Ackman and Karis Kennedy had 2 points.

Dexter (13-12) returns to action at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23 when the Bearcats host Fredericktown at Dexter High School.

Jackson (17-6) will look to make it five wins in a row at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22 when the Indians welcome the Sikeston Bulldogs to Jackson High School for senior night.