MINERAL RIDGE — With the game on the line Wednesday, the McDonald High School girls basketball team reverted back to the things that coach Amy Dolsak stressed during rugged practices this winter.

The top-seeded Blue Devils used a balance of quick-strike offense and patience, plus they shared the basketball to pull away from fifth-seeded Jackson-Milton, 44-30, in a Division IV district semifinal at Mineral Ridge.

“We started doing the things well in the fourth quarter that we needed to do all game, like sharing and moving the ball,” said Dolsak, whose team improved to 21-2. “When we slowed the pace there, we did a nice job of being patient unless we had layups. We made good cuts and good passes and got some easy ones.”

The Blue Devils will play second-seeded Western Reserve at 4 p.m. Saturday at Mineral Ridge in a rematch of last year’s district championship game. The teams split regular-season games this year and shared the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference title with 11-1 records.

Jackson-Milton put up its best showing of the season in its three match-ups with McDonald. Abby Spalding totaled 19 points and 10 rebounds.

The Blue Jays, who finished 14-10, trailed 28-24 late in the third quarter and were down just 36-30 with 4:58 left. However, they went cold from the floor and had trouble finding open looks against McDonald’s defense.

“We were right there, right with them the entire game,” Jackson-Milton coach Pat Keney said. “We lost our legs in the fourth quarter, then (McDonald) went into their slow offense. We had no option other than to press them at every opportunity and they broke the pressure and got a number of layups and easy baskets because we had to gamble.

“The final score doesn’t indicate how well we played throughout the game.”

For the better part of the game, the Blue Devils’ scoring came from junior guard Sophia Costantino, who finished with 22 points and made three of her team’s five 3-pointers. She scored seven in the first period when McDonald took a 12-7 lead and added five in the second quarter as the Blue Devils led 19-16 at halftime.

She saved her best for last, scoring eight of her team’s 14 points in the fourth quarter.

Spalding was scoreless in the first period for J-M, then got aggressive driving the ball. She scored nine in the second, half of her team’s eight points in the third and all six of the Blue Jays’ points in the final period.