Girls

The Saint Jo Lady Panthers started district on Tuesday night at home against Bellevue.
The Lady Panthers won 62-40 against the Lady Eagles.
Both teams were coming into district with teams filled with underclassmen. The thing for Saint Jo was most of its players had a least one season of experience while this Bellevue team is made up of a lot of freshman.
The Lady Panthers employed a trapping full-court press style defense that gave the Lady Eagles fits from the start as Saint Jo went up 17-5 in the first quarter.
Bellevue did a better job of trying to break the press in the second quarter, but not well enough to get back into the game. The Lady Eagles wanted to play fast which led to some chances to score, but also turnovers.
The Lady Panthers were looking to push the pace in transition as well and continued to do a better job as their lead extended to 31-16 at halftime.
The third quarter saw Bellevue more than double its halftime total, scoring 18 points by making a couple of 3-pointers and getting to the free throw line more successfully.
Unfortunately for the Lady Eagles, they could not stop Saint Jo as the Lady Panthers nearly equaled them scoring 17 points in the high scoring period. Saint Jo made three 3-pointers and continued to push the ball every chance it got.
The fourth quarter saw the Lady Panthers defense clamp down on Bellevue, limiting the Lady Eagles to only six points in the final period. This allowed Saint Jo to push to the ball and continue to score as its lead grew until the final buzzer.
The Lady Panthers won 62-40.

Boys
The Saint Jo Panthers lost a physical, close game against 3A Boyd on Tuesday night.
The Yellowjackets won 74-66 against a Panthers team that stayed right with the bigger school team and had chances to pull ahead at times.
Boyd came in with only one loss and the shorter, athletic team looked to employ a full-court press defense to compensate. Early on, the press created some transition opportunities and the Yellowjackets led 12-6 midway through the first quarter.
Saint Jo calmed down to break the press, finding holes in Boyd’s halfcourt zone defense for 3-pointers as Brice Durham made three of the team’s four in the first quarter. The Panthers trailed only 18-14 heading into the second quarter.
The Panthers did a better job of taking care of the ball on offense and getting more hands on interior passes on defense. Boyd was opting to pass through the zone with fast precision which left little room for error and gave Saint Jo defenders chances to mess it up.
Kile Thurman got hot on offense for the Panthers during the quarter, scoring 10 of the team’s 17 points and helping them pull ahead 31-29 at halftime.
The beginning of the third quarter Boyd was able to get back the lead, but Saint Jo was keeping pace. Down 42-40 midway through the quarter, the Yellowjackets then went on a 11-3 run in the next minute and half to go up double-digits 53-43.
Coach Ryan Bruce later said he was testing his team to work out of the run itself instead of calling a time out he probably would have in a bigger game. The run was largely fueled by several turnovers against Boyd’s press that snowballed into scoring opportunities right after the other.
Saint Jo trailed 58-48 heading into the final quarter.
Despite continuing to hit some good shots, the Panthers could not come up with enough defensive stops to get back into the game in the fourth quarter.
There were some bad feelings expressed from both sides at the end as Boyd celebrated winning 74-66.

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