As the 2021-22 campaign wound down last weekend, the playoffs came into focus for Jefferson High’s basketball squads. The girls, at 17-1, will enter the conference tournament as the top seed, while the boys will duke it out in the middle of the pack.
In Saturday’s regular-season finales at home with Broadwater High, both Panther teams kept to the scripts.
The Lady Panthers took a 62-23 win in commanding fashion, with the scoring evenly distributed among its strong roster. Izzy Morris put the first points on the board with a 2-pointer and then a 3-pointer. Dakota Edmisten added a free throw, and Brynna Wolfe, Austie May and Rachel Van Blaricom all scored to make it 11-4 at the end of one quarter.
Cia Stuber hit back-to-back 3-pointers and a 2-pointer to juice the Panthers in the second quarter. Wolfe added a 3-pointer, and Mackenzie Layng sank a 2-pointer and a pair of free throws for a 28-9 lead at the half.
The Panthers came out hot in the third, with great passing and a smothering defense. Edmisten swished a pair of free throws, Van Blaricom added a pair of 2-pointers, Layng added two 3-pointers, and Stuber ended the period with her third 3-pointer of the game for a 50-17 lead going into the final eight minutes.
Panther subs took over from there. Austie May hit a 2-pointer and later swished her first 3-pointer of the year, and Arena Faler added three points as the Panthers took the win 62-23. Stuber was high scorer with 13 points, while Wolfe added 12 and Layng 10.
The boys game was all about the final five minutes. Up to then, it was a back-and-forth battle: Trent McMaster started things with a 3-pointer, and Wade Rykal poured in 6 points and Tom Meyer 4 to give the Panthers a 15-13 lead. Both teams struggled to get shots to fall in the second, but Jake Genger’s 2-pointer helped Jefferson to a 25-21 edge at the half.
The game stayed close in the third, but a pair of 3-pointers by Tyler Harrington and a 3-pointer by Zach Zody gave Jefferson a 39-37 lead. And Harrington’s 3-pointer with five minutes left kept the Panthers within one, 45-44.
But then the Bulldogs got hot. They went on a 17-4 tear to close the game, sinking nine of 10 free throws in the period, and ran off with a 62-48 victory. Rykal led the Panther scoring with 12 points; Harrington added 11 and Luke Eckmann 6.
The loss dropped the Panthers to fourth place in District 5B. Three Forks won the regular season, with Broadwater winning the tie-breaker for second and Manhattan third. Sweet Grass County finished fifth and Whitehall sixth. Three Forks and Broadwater will get byes in the district tournament’s first round on Thursday, while Jefferson plays Sweet Grass at 3 p.m., and Manhattan plays Whitehall at 4:30 p.m.
In the girls bracket, Jefferson gets a first-round bye along with Sweet Grass—the only team it lost to in the regular season. Fourth-place Manhattan will play fifth-place Townsend at 6 p.m. Thursday, before third-place Three Forks will play sixth-place Whitehall at 7:30 p.m.
