Seymour girls basketball coach Jason Longmeier says the key for his team to beat New Albany in the Jeffersonville Class 4A Sectional is putting the ball in the basket.

“We need to finish,” Longmeier said. “We left too many points out there. We have to make them.”

Last Thursday night, the Owls defeated the Bulldogs 48-46 on Journee Brown’s layup at the buzzer in a Hoosier Hills Conference game on the Bulldogs’ court.

The Owls are 10-10 entering tonight’s 5:30 p.m. game while the Bulldogs are 5-18 and have lost 10 straight games.

Longmeier said the Owls will need to be at the top of their game from the start.

“New Albany has played a really tough schedule, and they’ve played some of those teams really close. They were up early in the third quarter against Jennings County, and they got beat at home by 8 to Bedford, so they’ve played some teams really well. They were playing better earlier in the year than what they’re playing right now.

“We are going to get good looks against their zone, we just need to make them,” Longmeier said. “If they go man-to-man, we need to spread them out and attack them with penetration. We feel like we have an advantage in that area. When we’ve shot the ball well we’ve been a good team.”

Kendall Sterling tops the Owls in scoring at 12.7 points per game, and she is followed by Brooke Trinkle at 11.7 and Grace Schrader at 9.8

Schrader topped the Owls in scoring at New Albany with 15, and Kaylee Waskom came off the bench and scored 11.

“They’ve got two players that can play for anybody in the conference in (Maleea) Roland and (Taylor) Treat,” Longmeier said. “Our focus going in is to find a way to slow those two down. I think if we can slow those two down we’ve got a really good chance to win. I think what we have over them is a little more balance. I think our balance could be the difference in the game.”

Treat scored 16 and Roland scored 13 against the Owls last week. Roland leads the Bulldogs in scoring at 16 points per game.

Longmeier said turnovers and rebounds are other keys to the game.

“We had a few too many careless turnovers,” he said. “We need to clean that up. Rebounding was dead even 30 to 30. We had some bad matchups that we are going to be adjusting to. Hopefully that will help take care of the boards a little.”

In the second game tonight, Bedford North Lawrence (20-2) will play Jeffersonville (10-7).

Jennings County (16-6) drew a bye and will play the Seymour-New Albany winner at 5:30 p.m. Friday, and Floyd Central (9-13) will play the BNL-Jeff winner in the second game Friday night. The championship game is set for Saturday night.