MT. CARMEL, ILL. – Despite a quick start, it took a re-energized Lady Warrior basketball team until the fourth quarter to finally gain control of Thursday's NJCAA Midwest District semifinal game against Lincoln Trail.
"We started really strong in the first quarter, then we lost our energy in the second and third," said WVC coach Luke Scheidecker. "We responded well in the fourth quarter."
Lincoln Trail had crept to within eight points when the alarm bells sounded in the Warrior camp.
The result? An 88-57 win and a berth in Friday's 6 p.m. championship game, which top-seed WVC (19-3) will host against third-seeded Rend Lake (14-5). The Warriors of Rend Lake knocked off No. 2 seed Vincennes, 83-71, in the other semifinal.
"We got a bit lackadaisical," said Scheidecker of the middle frames of the game. "We weren't attacking and just settled for jump shots. They played really hard and played with great effort.
"We've got to be better than that."
Jazmyn Turner, who has been named the Player of the Year in the Great Rivers Athletic Conference, has found her way back to the top of the NJCAA shooting chart. Turner now leads the country in field goal shooting (.626), and if she can stay on top will achieve a truly rare feat. She led the nation last year as well (.685).
Turner scored 19 points in the game.
Je'Naiya Davis, who has been named to the all-GRAC and all-Region 24 teams, led Wabash Valley with 23 points.
Scheidecker was also impressed with the emergence of Mariah Jones, the two-sport standout who was a vital part of the Lady Warrior volleyball team which advanced to the Midwest Regional tournament in Iowa at the end of a 14-9 campaign.
What made her story unique this year is that due to a COVID-mandated re-shuffling of the entire junior college season calendar, Jones ended up playing both sports concurrently.
"She's been back and forth all year between basketball and volleyball, which is super hard," Scheidecker said. "She has not been consistently at practice for either sport because she had games. Now that she has been around a little bit, look for her to get more into the flow of things."
Jones scored 10 points for the Warriors in the win.