Charleston uses superior speed and defense to take down Bell City in Christmas Tournament

The Charleston Blue Jays defeated the Bell City Cubs 65-44 in the fifth-place semifinal in the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament on Dec. 28 at the Show Me Center.

The Blue Jays used defensive intensity and transition offense to defeat the Cubs and move on to face Notre Dame on Monday.

Bell City led 15-6 after one as several Cubs scored in a balanced offense while also using scrappy defense to keep Charleston at bay.

The second quarter turned in favor of the Blue Jays. Charleston went down 11 before taking a timeout and talking things over.

The break worked wonders as the Blue Jays upped their defensive pressure and scored a bunch of points in transition to take a 22-21 halftime lead.

Head coach Jamarcus Williams said the second quarter was a huge turning point for his team.

“Bell City, they did a good job of slowing us up and just killing our entire pace in the first quarter,” Williams said. “Once we realized what they were doing, we just put emphasis on playing fast, playing down hill, and making them play defense. We were able to get the shots around the goal that we wanted to and they started falling.”

The third was a mirror image of the second, Charleston scoring at will in transition and holding the Cubs to just three points. Charleston led 44-24 entering the final frame.

Charleston cruised through the fourth quarter without any drama and will look to win their final game of the tournament against the conference opponent Bulldogs for the second time this season.

Williams said it will be a tough game between opponents who know each other well.

“It's never easy. They saw what we had to offer a couple weeks ago and they saw what they had to offer,” Williams said. “Whenever you had to play a team multiple times, it progressively gets tougher each time we have to go to a game Monday.”