While it already had the championship sealed in the Gateway Athletic Conference Central Division heading into the game, Washington put an exclamation point on the title run with a dominating performance Tuesday at Ft. Zumwalt East.
The Lady Jays (14-10, 7-1) cruised to a 59-27 win over the Lady Lions.
Washington’s game Thursday at Pacific was postponed and rescheduled for Friday.
“Overall, it was a great team win for us,” said Washington Head Coach Adam Fischer. “We won conference with a 7-1 record, and we have some other goals this year we would like to achieve as well.”
Those goals pertain to the Class 5 District 10 Tournament, which begins Saturday at Rolla High School.
The third-seeded Lady Jays have a first-round bye and meet second-seeded Rolla in the semifinals Monday at 7:30 p.m.
Top-seeded Waynesville takes on Saturday’s winner between fourth-seeded Northwest and fifth-seeded Lebanon in the other semifinal game Monday at 6 p.m.
The district championship contest is scheduled for Thursday at 6 p.m.
It was a huge first half for the Lady Jays, who outscored Ft. Zumwalt East 19-7 in the first quarter and 26-7 in the second quarter for a 45-14 halftime lead.
Washington had things in cruise control during the second half, outscoring FZE, 14-13.
“Our girls played a good all-around ball game. We wanted to try a few new things out on the offensive end of the floor and we really executed well,” Fischer said. “We got back to playing our style of game, and we really tried to force East to play that way.”
Paige Carpenter led Washington in the scoring column with 17 points, knocking down three three-pointers. She added four assists and two rebounds.
“Paige shot the ball really well,” Fischer said. “Our girls got her the ball when she was open.”
Courtney Kedroski finished the game with 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals.
Kaitlin Evans collected 10 points, four steals and three rebounds.
Helena Ballmann pitched in with eight points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Rachel Kackley had four points, six rebounds and four blocked shots.
Megan Bauche and Megan Freitag both scored three points. Bauche added three rebounds and two assists. Freitag grabbed two rebounds.
Kirstie Leslie added two points, six rebounds and two steals.
Mallori Hellrich led Ft. Zumwalt East (5-17, 0-8) with nine points.
“We had a big size advantage and we took advantage of it from the beginning of the game,” Fischer said. “We got some easy baskets inside early, and then started moving the ball to the open person.”
