Coach Jason Longmeier has seen Grace Meyer come up with numerous big baskets for the Seymour girls basketball team during her career, so he wasn’t surprised with her effort in the third quarter of Tuesday night’s game with Jeffersonville.
After the Red Devils took a 32-31 lead on a 3-point basket by Sophia Reece with 2:10 remaining in the period, Meyer wasn’t going to let this one get away from her team.
She made 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions and added a layup seconds later to spark Seymour to a 55-38 win.
Jamya Miller added another layup later in the period as the Owls went on a 10-0 run and held a 43-34 lead going into the fourth period.
Kendall Sterling scored four points around a basket by Meyer at the start of the fourth period to spark the Owls to a 49-34 lead.
A basket by Meyer with 2:33 remaining gave the Owls their biggest lead of the night at 55-35.
Meyer topped all players with 16 points and moved past Shari Runge (1,015) and into ninth place on Seymour’s career scoring list with 1,025 points.
Longmeier said the opening minutes were important to his team.
“They are very similar to us in the games they’ve played well,” he said. “They’ve gotten off to good starts, and they play with confidence, and then in some of the games where they’ve really struggled, teams have come out and jumped on them, so we’ve got to make sure we make early shots and that we’re not turning the ball over. If we do those two things I think, it will be a great start for us, and I think we’ll be all right.”
Grace Schrader had the hot hand for the Owls in the opening period with seven points to help her team to a 14-7 lead.
Kendall Sterling also had a 3-pointer in the first period, and the Owls took good care of the basketball with just one turnover over those first eight minutes.
The Owls had trouble hitting the basket in the second period with 3-for-12 shooting and committed five turnovers that enabled the Red Devils to tie the score at 16 with 2:55 left in the half.
But Brooke Trinkle and Sterling had baskets late in the half for a 20-16 lead at intermission.
“We talk about turnovers all the time,” Longmeier said. “The turnover ratio is really hurting us right now.”
The Owls finished with 13 turnovers, but the Red Devils had 12.
Longmeier also talked about the rebounding.
Jeffersonville’s Cadence Singleton suffered a knee injury in the second period and missed the rest of the game, while Estes, a 6-foot senior, had nine rebounds but only one basket and four points.
Meyer had 10 rebounds to help the Owls to a 31-27 advantage in that department.
Sterling added 13 points, while Schrader and Trinkle finished with nine each.
Nevaeh Bates was high scorer for Jeffersonville with 11 points.
The Owls (8-8, 2-4 HHC) will be home versus Franklin (15-1) on Thursday night.
Box score
At Seymour
Seymour 55, Jeffersonville 38
Jeffersonville;7;9;18;4;1;38
Seymour;14;6;23;12;—;55
Seymour (8-8, 2-4 HHC): Grace Meyer 6 2-2 16, Kendall Sterling 5 2-2 13, Alyssa Perry 2 0-0 4, Jamya Miller 2 0-1 4, Grace Schrader 3 2-2 9, Brooke Trinkle 3 2-2 9, Kendrick Sterling 0 0-0 0, Journee Brown 0 0-1 0, Eliza Cash 0 0-0 0, Cali Cummings 0 0-0 0, Kaylee Waskom 0 0-0 0: Totals: 19 8-10 55.
3-point goals: Seymour (Meyer 2, Kendall Sterling, Schrader, Trinkle)
Rebounds: Seymour 31 (Meyer 10, Schrader 7)
Turnovers: Seymour 13
Fouls: Seymour 12
Junior varsity
Jeffersonville 34, Seymour 24
Seymour: Brown 9, Sydney Montgomery 4, Lexi Morris 3, Tori Fee 4, Lainey Jackson 2, Hannah Dart 2.