Girls' basketball: Wood scores 23 in Lady Dragon win over EJCHS

Skylar Evanson added eight points as the Lady Dragons claimed their second subregion victory and won for the fifth time in seven games.

Jefferson only led East Jackson 28-26 with 2:36 left in the third quarter but reeled off the next 13 points to build its lead to 15 late in the fourth quarter. Wood scored 10 of her 23 points in the final period as the Lady Dragons pulled away.

She also finished with 13 rebounds.

“She plays her tail off,” Jefferson coach Jason Gibson said. “She plays extremely hard all the time.”

Madison Wuertley scored 11 points to pace East Jackson. Kayla Thomas added nine points, all of which came from the three-point line.

This was a tightly-contested rivalry game for most of the night.

Sparked by the offensive play of Wood, the Lady Dragons surged ahead 19-11 in the second quarter but East Jackson rallied with a three-pointer from Thomas and a bucket from Taylor Patrick to cut the lead to 19-16.

Evanson closed the first half for Jefferson with a three-pointer to put the Lady Dragons ahead 22-16. Jefferson then scored the first six points of the third quarter to go up by nine. East Jackson answered with a 7-0 run, capped off by a bucket from Hydeia Rucker, to cut the lead to 28-26.

The Lady Eagles, however, scored just two more points over the course of the final 10:36 of the game.

Jefferson also held East Jackson to just two points in a low-scoring first quarter, which the Lady Dragons led 4-2.

“I thought we changed in-and-out of defenses extremely well both early in the game and late in the game,” Gibson said. “I thought that caused them some trouble.”

Jefferson came into this game with a litany of injuries, but Gibson said his team continues to get quality minutes out of underclassmen, pointing to players like Jackie Coleman and Dralynn Vaughn.

“I really feel like some of our younger players really stepped up,” Gibson said.