By: Adam Sissom (10)

  The Helias Catholic Crusaders took down the Jefferson City Jays in a Tuesday night thriller. The game featured multiple three-pointers, great defensive plays, and even a slam dunk.

The team explained how it’s always a good time when playing a cross-town rival and the good vibes that come after winning.

“It’s a good match. We play them every year. It’s really close,” said Logan Hillman (12). “Being a crosstown rival, that’s just what you’ve got to do.”

“The best part of beating them is celebrating afterwards,” Rowan Buffington (12) explained.

The game started out as a close match. The whole first half of the game was back and forth, including JC coming back to tie the game after being down by 10 at one point. Going into halftime, the Crusaders were only up by two. However, they came out of the locker room ready to play the second half. In the end, they defeated the Jays 61 - 42. Logan Hillman made a dunk in the fourth quarter.

“I also had a dunk. It made Brady [Fann] happy. It made the fans happy. People ask me to dunk a lot, and I did it,” Hillman stated. He described the dunk and his defense as the best part of his performance.

Buffington was proud of his shooting during the game.

“I’m most proud of my shooting performance because I’ve been working on it a lot, and it took a while to translate, but it finally did,” he explained.

Going forward, the team has some tough opponents to face. Hillman and Buffington have both stressed how the team has to improve and persevere.

“Something that we need to improve on is our turnovers and making smarter plays,” Hillman explained.

Buffington stated, “We need to keep the energy high. The leadership needs to be great, and we need to put the talent together and then we’ve got ourselves a big year.”

The Crusaders improved to 7-8 on the season as the Jays dropped to 4-11. The Crusaders will play next in the Liberator Tournament, starting on January 29th.