The Cimarron Lady Bluejays are young and balanced. They only have one senior on their roster but that hasn’t stopped them from maintaining a perfect record. The young athletes played a vital role in their 70-52 victory over Scott City in the first round of sub-state. Three players led the way and scored in double digits. The Jays' guards junior Ashtynn Burns and sophomore Morgan Ediger scored 21 points each while sophomore post Eva Coopman put up 18 of her own. Cimarron’s head coach, David Ediger, said this wasn’t the typical one seed vs. two seed match up.
“They give us some problems that a lot of teams haven’t,” he said. “They have a couple of big girls that are very good inside…We got behind early but showed a lot of poise by coming back and taking the lead by ten at half and then from there just kind of putting the game away.”
The Lady Jays were down by one point at the end of the first quarter. Throughout the second quarter the essential chemistry component was rekindled. Morgan Ediger made perimeter shots look easy and fed Koopman passes that set her up perfectly to maneuver in the paint.
“I think part of it is they just get along so well,” David Ediger said regarding Morgan and Eva’s chemistry. “They are real good friends and they hang out quite a bit and that is the case with a lot of our girls. Tonight they really clicked together well. Morgan is not the only one who got Eva the ball inside. Our other guards made it happen too.”
After the spark returned to the Lady Jays line up they did not look back. Koopman opened the fourth quarter with three consecutive baskets and Cimarron dominated Scott City 70-52. Ediger said being undefeated has no effect on their preparation for the next match up.
“At this time of the year, like I told the girls, it is just cleaning everything up,” he said. “We know what we need to be doing. We need to rebound a little better, take care of the ball a little better at times and we need to defend a little better. At the end of the game there we didn’t defend very well. They ran right past us and we would foul and they shot a lot of free throws. We have to fix that but also we need to just stay together. We talked about winning every possession and competing every possession and don’t lose a possession. That’s not always going to happen. The other team is going to score and sometimes we’re not but if we play with that competitiveness and that determination we should be OK.”
