ST. LOUIS — Led by an unstoppable charge early in the third quarter, Jackson rallied from an eight-point first-half deficit against No. 1 Francis Howell to stun the Vikings 54-46 in the championship game of the Lindbergh Girls Basketball Invitational on Thursday, Jan. 30, at Lindbergh High School.
Coming into the tournament as the No. 3 seed, Jackson needed big performances against No. 2 MICDS on Tuesday, Jan. 28, and again Thursday but, even with its hands full, it rose to the occasion and then some.
“It feels good,” Jackson coach Angela Fulton began.
“We want to see situations, and I thought this tournament was a very good tournament for situations to see how we need to handle it and what adjustments we need to make and things we need to work on.”
In the championship game for the first time since a victorious bid Jan. 27, 2022, also over Francis Howell, the Indians made the best of their return trip with a dominant second-half performance.
It didn’t come easy, with the cardiac kids again falling into a deep hole early on, but where the Indians have best thrived this season is when their backs have gone against the wall, and that was the case against Francis Howell.
Led by 17 points from senior Camryn Alsdorf and freshman Kate Deck, the Indians’ 3-point barrage early in the third put the pressure on the Vikings, and when Lauren Dorey’s triple to take the lead hit bottom, Jackson never again trailed.
“They're tough,” Fulton said of her girls. “They're not gonna give up. They're gonna fight.
“It showed the other night when we were down in the fourth quarter. They put the dogs on. Today, we were down, it got a little competitive, which is good for us. Instead of kind of shutting down, they rose up to the occasion.”
Improving to 14-1 on the season, still with just a single loss coming back in the FSCB Holiday Classic championship game against St. Vincent, it’s the sixth consecutive victory for a steamrolling Jackson squad.
The loss drops Francis Howell to 15-3 on the season, ending a three-game winning streak for the Vikings, a squad Jackson has become more familiar with in recent years since joining the Class 6 ranks across all sports.
Junior post Riese Grier gave the Indians everything they could ask for, leading Francis Howell in scoring with 12 points as she dominated Jackson down low all night long — no matter who it was.
A few different rotations of post defenders came in, but she simply couldn’t be contained, and that’s where Jackson’s biggest problem arose.
Mikayla Gavlick added nine, Rhianna Toebben had eight and Reagan Celeste seven, but the Indians’ second-half defensive effort shifted the tide in their favor as a 3-point barrage in the first half came to a shocking close.
Even with the post issues they suffered all game long, the Indians’ defense went from four 3-pointers allowed in the first half to just one surrendered in the entire second.
That one came on a broken play, in which junior Amya Porchia got a beautiful kick-out to the corner as she drilled a triple to push Francis Howell back into the matchup and force a timeout from the then-leading Indians.
The top-seeded Vikings, down double digits in the fourth quarter, closed to within five down the stretch, and while the Indians looked anything but comfortable, it didn’t represent a lack of composure.
Doing just enough to get across the finish line, it came down to some clutch free throws from Watkins, Alsdorf and Deck, and the Indians’ 83% clip in that final minute sealed the deal for their second tournament win of the year.
The Indians are on a roll heading into one of their biggest matchups of the year: an all-star brawl with 16-1 Doniphan on the road Monday night.
Going into the land of the Donettes for a clash with an Ozark Foothills powerhouse, the Indians are looking to upend a two-game losing streak to Class 4 Doniphan and keep their magical start alive in a battle of one-loss giants.
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