Camryn Alsdorf leads Jackson to victory in potential final home game

The Jackson Indians girls basketball team defeated the Hazelwood West Wildcats 80-47 on Friday at the Jackson High School Event Center.

In what could be the final home game of her career, senior Camryn Alsdorf led the Indians on offense with 31 points. Freshman Kate Deck backed her up with 22 points.

Alsdorf said scoring so much in a game like this means a lot but it’s more important for her and her teammates to win games.

“All I really want to do is thank my team for putting me and pushing me into this position, it would mean nothing without them,” Alsdorf said. “But the win felt good. It was a really good team win and I feel like everybody did their part.”

Alsdorf ran the show in the first quarter, scoring 11 out of Jackson’s first 12 points on three triples and a layup.

The Indians built a strong lead by forcing the Wildcats into 13 turnovers with their stifling press, making the score 30-19 after one.

Jackson rained down four straight threes to start the second, Deck knocked in two while Alsdorf and Rachel Berger added one each. The Indians continued to force Hazelwood West into turnovers to create easy buckets and lead 54-27 at the half.

Jackson head coach Angela Fulton said her team came out ready to win.

“I thought that our energy right off the get go was just there. Camryn Alsdorf came out and I think she had the first 11 points,” Fulton said. “We just came out swinging and in my eyes, the energy being high helped a ton.”

The teams traded buckets for most of the third quarter but the Indians did not allow Hazelwood West to get any closer leading 69-39 headed to the fourth.

Fulton pulled each of her four seniors out one by one to the applause of the crowd and underclassmen came in to put the game away. Jackson forces 29 turnovers to win their 22nd game of the year.

Fulton said the swarming defense of her team was great to see at this point in the season.

“We did a great job of keeping their good players contained. I thought we really locked in on them defensively,” Fulton said. “I think we cleaned up a little bit after halftime. So I did like that out of us.”

Jackson’s final regular season game is against Notre Dame on Monday at 6:30 p.m. before the Class 6 District 1 tournament begins on March 6.