Christian Fellowship Head Coach Trevor Jackson knew his Lady Eagles team would need a full-game effort to advance to their first-ever 4th District title game when they tipped off Saturday against Calloway County.
“That’s what we talked about after the game…we talked about it before the game”, Jackson said. “It was going to take four quarters of max effort. Have no regrets, leave it all on the court.”
The two teams split their games during the regular season but it was the Lady Lakers who earned the spot in the 4th District title game and a trip to the Region 1 Tournament with a 51-46 win.
Trialing 7-1 early, the Lady Eagles settled in offensively and tied the game up at 9-9 with one minute left in the quarter before a bucket by Sunny Clark gave Calloway an 11-9 lead. Lily Burnett scored four of the Lady Eagles seven second quarter points but they were outscored by Calloway 12-7 to trail 23-16 at halftime.
Down by 10 in the third quarter, baskets by Gracie Howard and Alyssa Warren cut the Calloway lead down to six. Trailing by 10 again late in the quarter, Jayden Jackson scored to cut it to eight but the deficit was back to 10 at 34-24 heading into the fourth quarter.
Two straight drives to the goal by Jackson trimmed the Calloway lead to six and it was the start of a 17-point quarter for the junior who led CFS with 20 points, all while playing with a labrum tear in her shoulder. Sayler Lowe scored to put the Lady Lakers back up by eight and with 3:19 left in the game, Jackson came up with two straight turnovers to cut the lead down to five points at 39-34.
Trailing 49-41, Jackson again cut the Calloway lead down to five points on a 3-pointer with 28 seconds to go, but with time running out, a couple of trips to the line by Calloway’s Madison Futrell sandwiched around a basket by Burnett, finished out the Lady Lakers five-point win.
The Lady Eagles shot 31 percent from the floor compared to 38 percent by Calloway County.
“The last third of the season, our overall shooting percentage was 31 percent”, Jackson said. “On average for the year we’re a 40 plus percentage shooting team from the field. In games we’ve lost we’ve been shooting in the low 30’s or in the Murray game we shot 22 percent. That’s something we’ve got to work on. End of the season, everybody’s tired, you’ve got to dig a little deeper.”
Jackson said a few tears were shed in the locker room following the loss, but when they take a minute and look back at all they’ve accomplished this year, they will be proud of what they did accomplish but at the same time, not be satisfied and come back a little hungrier.
“We set goals at the beginning of every season”, said Jackson. “We wanted to win the All ‘A’, win the KCAC tournament, make the regional tournament and we wanted to win 20 games.”
The Lady Eagles finished runner-up in the All ‘A’, runner-up in the KCAC and a few points shy of making the regional tournament. Finishing with a record of 17-10, CFS set a record for most wins in program history.
“The bar is raised a little bit more”, said Jackson of next year’s team, all of whom return and feels that the district will be wide open for them to make it out and make a run in the regional tournament.
Playing the season with a rotation of six, Jackson said he was proud of what they have accomplished and hopes to see some of his younger players step into more playing time next season.
“When you’re a school our size and you’ve got about 30 girls to choose from and 15 of them are already playing basketball…you’ve got to do the little things better than everybody else”, said Jackson. “Something you can control is your attitude and your effort.”
CFS 9 7 8 22 – 46
Calloway 11 12 11 17 – 51
CFS: Jackson 20, Burnett 10, G. Howard 10, R. Howard 4, Warren 2
Calloway: Lowe 17, Futrell 10, McReynolds 8, Settle 7, Schumacher 3, Clark 2, Koch 2, Crouch 2
CFS (17-10) : FG 14/45, 3 PT 1/9 (Jackson), FT 17/30 (Jackson 9/12), REB 34 (Burnett 10), AST 6, TO 19, PF 22
Calloway (10-14): FG 14/36, 3 PT 1/5 (Schumacher), FT 22/35 (Lowe 9/13), REB 34 (Lowe 10), AST 7, TO 19, PF 22
