The Saint Jo Lady Panthers started district play on Tuesday night with a win at Bellevue.
The Lady Panthers won 55-49 in a close game where two stylistically similar teams with playoff aspirations competed.
Saint Jo came into district play fresh off a super tough tournament at Nocona against mostly bigger schools. The Lady Panthers also were a little beat up with one starter out for the game and several still feeling the effects.
Nevertheless, Saint Jo returns the majority of its team that finished second in district last year and is looking to challenge for the district title.
The Lady Eagles are hoping to turn over a new leaf after the mostly led freshman group last year missed the playoffs for the first time in several seasons. A year of growth and also some tough competition during pre-district has Bellevue not only expecting the playoffs again, but possibly at the district title.
Both teams employ similar but different full-court, zone style press/trap defenses. The goal is to force turnovers and get chances in transition to score. When that isn’t there both teams like to push the ball anyway and look for quick 3-pointers or drive-and-kick chances.
Despite the expectations, the pace was not lightning quick all of the time. Both teams tried to be methodical breaking the press instead of trying to sprint through and put up the first open shot they got. There were holes in both teams’ 3-2 zone defense and each coach was trying to attack them with the personnel they had.
Saint Jo took a narrow lead 15-11 at the end of the first quarter. Bellevue’s points mostly came on knocking down open 3-pointers. The Lady Panthers were mixing up the approach and earned more free throw attempts.
The Lady Eagles varied their approach in the second quarter, getting post player Callie Martin more involved and earning some free throw attempts as well which also put Saint Jo’s shortened bench to the test.
The Lady Panthers offense started to have a bit more trouble against Bellevue’s press that lasted the rest of the game. While the turnovers ramped up for Saint Jo, they usually were not the type that turned into transition opportunities on a regular basis.
Still, Saint Jo held onto its narrow lead, even after giving it up midway through the second quarter. The Lady Panthers compensated by making four 3-pointers and scoring on some high percentage shots near the rim.
After the highest scoring quarter for both teams as they each scored 18 points, Saint Jo was ahead 33-29 at halftime.
The Lady Panthers had some trouble in the third quarter as one of their ball handlers had to sit out the majority of time with foul trouble. Also, in the final three minutes of the quarter, do everything player Taylor Patrick took a tumble that had her take a rest while getting her head back on straight.
While Bellevue continued to attack in similar ways as it did in the third quarter, Saint Jo was carried offensively by Kyler Dunn. She scored all 14 of the team’s points in the quarter as she earned eight free throw attempts and made two 3-pointers.
The Lady Panthers lead grew by one heading into the fourth quarter up 47-42.
The pace was slowed down by Saint Jo to try and prevent the Lady Eagle’s chances to come back. Midway through, the Lady Panthers had their biggest lead of the game 54-45 and just tried to stall and earn free throws.
While Bellevue got lucky and Saint Jo went 1-6 from the free throw line in the quarter, the Lady Eagles could not get enough of their limited shots to go down late to make up the difference.
The Lady Panthers won 55-49.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.