Jackson girls' pressure defense paves way for 65-25 win over rival Central

The Jackson girls basketball team hounded, harassed and pressured on Thursday night at Central High School.

The host Tigers never had a chance.

Jackson used full-court pressure and intense man-to-man half-court defense to force numerous turnovers en route to a 65-25 victory.

"I thought we played really well from the get go," Jackson coach Tyler Abernathy said. "We talked about before the game that energy and effort wins a lot of games. I thought if our energy and effort was really good, we would have a chance at being successful, and I thought it was phenomenal."

The energy and effort on defense generated turnovers and plenty of offense.

Central’s Sarah Boerboom, left, gets tangled with Jackson’s Rachel Crites while trying to shoot during the first quarter Thursday at Central High School. (Fred Lynch)

Jackson (6-3) unleashed its blitz from the start, jumping out to a 19-9 lead in the first quarter.

The Indians buried three of their eight 3-pointers in the opening quarter.

"Just going in in the morning and shooting," Jackson guard Rachel Crites about the team's hot shooting. "Coach says the more we get up, the more that go in. So just go in and shoot and it transfers over to the game."

Central found no relief in the second quarter. The Tigers netted just two points in the period on a pair of Morgan Duschell free throws.

The Tigers' final field goal of the first half came with 1 minute 56 seconds left in the first quarter.

Jackson’s Cassidi Tomsu drives for a layup during the third quarter Thursday. Tomsu finished with a game-high 12 points.

"Today we all clicked and we just worked together," Crites said. "[Coach] told us, since he's seen how they played, he told us what was going to happen. And he told us the girl was going to cut down the middle so we knew to push up some so we could get more turnovers."

The strategy worked.

On offense, the Indians displayed patience all night, working the ball from guard to guard and into the post for open jumpers or layups the majority of the game.

"We shoot a pretty high percentage," Abernathy said. "I thought tonight early on we made the extra pass. We've talk about that a lot lately, and I thought we made the extra pass and got open shots and they went in."

Jackson led 38-11 at halftime.

Abernathy subsituted freely all night, sending in five at a time, resulting in 11 players in the scoring column.

The rotation of players also allowed the Indians to stay fresh to pressure Central's guards.

"It's really nice, we haven't really done that," Abernathy said about the substitutions. "We played Webster Groves on Saturday and we were down quite a bit at halftime. We came out after half and we started doing that; we started picking up our pressure. I told the first five, 'Listen you're only playing but three, three and a half minutes, then I'm putting the other five in so I want you to play as hard as you can for three and a half minutes' and we came back and were successful.

"It was big for us, we've worked on it a little bit in practice and I think it paid dividends tonight. To be able to bring those kids in, and they're good players and they're going to be real good players, to be able to come in and give our starters a little bit of a break and keep up that defensive intensity. It helps out definitely."

Jackson stretched its lead to 52-18 by the start of the fourth quarter.

The Indians were paced by Cassidi Tomsu's game-high 12 points.

Sydney Tollison led Central with five points.

Jackson 19 19 14 13 -- 65

Central 9 2 7 7 -- 25

JACKSON (65) -- Cassidi Tomsu 12, Rachel Crites 8, Mckinzie Scott 9, Autumn Reid 8, Michaela Binns 4, Emily Gartman 5, Rylee Stafford 4, Nikki Sotak 2, Mallorie Maintz 2, Maidson Eckley 2, Kayla Keith 9. FG 15, FT 11-14, F 15. (3-pointers: Tomsu 1, Crites 2, Scott 1, Reid 2, Gartman 1, Stafford 1. Fouled out: none)

CENTRAL (25) -- Morgan Duschell 2, Sydney Tollison 5, Kelly Morton 3, Sarah Boerboom 4, Kassidy Pannier 3, Bailey Bliss 4, Deja Stewart 1, Moriah Terry 3. FG 5, FT 9-12, F 14. (3-pointers: Tollison 1, Pannier 1. Fouled out: none)