By Jeremy McDonald
jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
JEFFERSON, Ore.– Less than 48 hours after their season-opening defeat to Pleasant Hill, the Jefferson Girls Basketball team responded. And responded well.
Even though Corbett graduated Ally Schimel from their undefeated, 3A State Championship squad entering this year, the Cardinals are still Corbett and will be a tough out. With Ally’s younger sister, Lilly, leading the Cardinals, the Lions had to stay in it mentally knowing the potential that she and the rest of the Corbett squad possessed in shooting the ball.
Jefferson jumped out to a 16-4 lead to open the game. The Cardinals chipped away at the deficit and eventually got it to a 18-14 deficit early in the second quarter before the Lions got their defense right, got the stops for their offense that helped them go into the halftime break leading 37-26.
The defense had its ups-and-downs, things to work on with the season fully underway now, but it helped get the job done by game’s end when they needed it the most.
“We had some really good spurts, we had some spurts where we lost track of what the game plan was and who their personnel were. You know with Corbett coming into the gym, they can really shoot the ball and we lost them a few too many times,” said Jefferson Head Coach Zach Maison.
Corbett’s defense clamped down in the opening four minutes of the third quarter as they created turnovers and slowed down the Lions offense that saw Gretchen Orton and Aziza Saad go off for 25-points each in the game. With Jefferson’s shooting in a lull, the Cardinals were looking for a run during this stretch.
But just as Corbett’s defense stepped up as the aggressor, the Lions did the same.
Shaking off rust from the halftime break, their defense continued a ‘Bend, don’t break’ approach of making it difficult for the Cardinals to land a shot or get a second chance look off a rebound. Keeping it to around a ten-point lead going into the fourth quarter, Jefferson took off and didn’t look back against the defending 3A State Champions. The Lions snapped Corbett’s 27-game winning streak in the process of winning their first game of the year, 62-52.
“We just had to stay confident, keep shooting, and trust our teammates was the big thing,” said Aziza Saad, who had seven three’s in the win. “This win will definitely help us carry on through the season. We just got to carry the energy that we had from this game and bring it into the next couple of games. We just have to stay confident and not overthink anything and make sure we play our game: Fast and move the ball a lot.”
Jefferson heads to Banks on Tuesday before heading to nearby Turner to play Cascade on Thursday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
