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Jackson girls lead yet another comeback, upending top-seeded Howell for Lindbergh title
Led by an unstoppable charge early in the third quarter, Jackson rallied out of an 8-point first-half deficit against No. 1 Francis Howell to stun the Vikings in the championship game of the Lindbergh Girls Basketball Invitational, 54-46.
Coming into the tournament as the third seed, Jackson needed big performances against No. 2 MICDS Tuesday and again on 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 in the 2021-22 season, a Jan. 27, 2022 victory likewise 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 Howell.
Led by double 17s from senior Camryn Alsdorf and freshman Kate Deck, the Indians’ 3-point barrage early in the third put the pressure on the Vikings’ heels, 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.
Losing drops Howell to 15-3 on the season, ending a three-game winning streak for the Vikes that Jackson’s become more and 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 Howell in scoring to the tune of 12 points as she dominated the Jackson low man 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 problems arose.
Mikayla Gavlick added 9, Rhianna Toebben 8 and Reagan Celeste 7, but the Indians’ second-half defensive effort shifted the tides in their favor as a 3-point barrage in the first half came to a shocking close.
Even with the post issues that they suffered all game long, the Tribe defensemen went from four 3-pointers allowed in the first half, in which the Vikings shot rather poorly comparatively, to just one surrendered in the entire second.
That one came on a broken play, on which junior Amya Porchia got a beautiful kick-out into 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 closed a double-digit fourth-quarter lead from Jackson all the way down to just 5 coming 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-percent clip in that final minute sealed the deal for the second tournament win of the year.
Now on another long winning streak, 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 on 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 the Class 4 Doniphan and keep their magical start alive in a battle of one-loss giants.