Having two and a half weeks off since its previous game gave the Edinburgh girls basketball team a chance to lick some of its wounds and get physically geared up for the end of the regular season.
That time also allowed some rust to accumulate on the Lancers’ offense, and that rust helped sink any hopes of a major upset in the final game of their one-day holiday tourney Friday afternoon.
After pulling out a narrow semifinal win, Edinburgh was overpowered by Class A No. 3 Jac-Cen-Del in the title tilt 53-31.
“We had practice for two days (after Christmas), and I felt like we needed a little more,” Edinburgh sophomore Destiney Ramey said of the long layoff.
The Eagles (13-1) took much of the suspense out of the championship game by opening with a 13-2 run. Edinburgh cut it to 16-7 when Destiney Ramey beat the first-quarter horn with a 3, but Jac-Cen-Del’s defense held the Lancers without another field goal until the final seconds of the first half, building its lead to 28-10 in the process.
Edinburgh’s only made basket in the second quarter was a Haven Link 3-pointer with 8 seconds left on the clock.
Down by as many as 21 early in the third, the Lancers (7-7) got a run of consecutive buckets from Sidney Beier, Abby Schooler and Trinity Tatlock to make it 36-21. Another 3 from Link and a three-point play from Ramey near the end of the quarter cut the gap down to 41-30.
“I saw them having some patience on offense, penetrating to the middle and then hitting open people,” Edinburgh coach Amy Schilling said of the third-quarter surge.
The home team was unable to cut it to single digits in the fourth and the Eagles pulled away.
“We had our good times, and we had our bad times,” said Ramey, who scored a team-high 12 points in the loss.
The Lancers earned a place in the title game by edging Orleans 40-37 in a morning semifinal.
Ramey and Link led a balanced Edinburgh attack with 11 and 10 points, respectively.
Link added 11 points in the tourney final.
Edinburgh returns to action next Wednesday at Speedway.
