The fifth-seeded Blue Jays worked on pieces of their game against visiting Southern Local in a Division IV first-round sectional game Wednesday night, which J-M won, 64-17, over the 12th-seeded Indians.

“We looked good tonight, but Southern is very young and Saturday will be a bigger test,” Jackson-Milton coach Pat Keney said. “We wanted to put pressure on their ball-handling, and it worked very well. We got a ton of steals and those led to a lot of layups.

“We haven’t been able to play our typical style for much of the past three weeks. We canceled a game a few weeks ago because we had nine kids out sick. The games we didn’t cancel, we couldn’t use our press as much because we didn’t have as many bodies, and we didn’t want to wear ourselves out. The sickness has lingered and spread. We’re just trying to put it back together again.”

The Blue Jays improved to 13-9 and play at fourth-seeded Lisbon in a sectional bracket final at 1 p.m. Saturday. Lisbon downed 13th-seeded Lordstown 60-18 on Wednesday night.

Staff photo / Brad Emerine Jackson-Milton’s Alyssa Deak gets past Southern defender Lindsay Ingledue (14).

“The games with Lisbon are always barn-burners,” Keney said. “They almost always come down to the fourth quarter and who can make the key plays in tight games. We’ve got to go in there and take care of our business and try to play our game.”

The Blue Devils are led by senior point guard Izzy Perez and senior post player Maddie Liberati. Jackson-Milton beat Lisbon 51-38 on Feb. 8, using a 15-5 second-quarter scoring advantage.

“(Against Lisbon) we worked the ball and looked for inside shots, and we did a good job in the paint,” said senior forward Abigail Spalding, who scored 17 points, grabbed five rebounds and had four assists against Southern. “Lisbon is a great team with two really good players. We got (Liberati) in some foul trouble in that game, and that really helped. She’s very good. She works her butt off in the paint. I haven’t seen another post work as hard as she does in there all season.”

The match-up against Southern didn’t produce much of a challenge for the Blue Jays, as the Indians finished the season 1-20.

Still, Jackson-Milton led just 17-8 after the first period before its defense turned up the pressure even more.

The Blue Jays led 40-14 at halftime, as Grace McDevitt scored all six of her points in the second quarter and Chelsea Williams scored six of her 17 points.

“Our defense has always been one of our strengths all season,” Williams said. “Our offense jelled tonight, and I think we’ve shared the ball very well all season. We’ve got six seniors and we’re a pretty close group and I think that definitely helps on the floor.”

Jackson-Milton forced a running clock early in the third quarter on a layup from Spalding and led 60-14 entering the fourth quarter. Courtney Mercer made a pair of 3-pointers in the third period en route to finishing with 10 points.

Southern did not score for over 13 minutes, as it scored with 1:33 left before halftime and didn’t score again until midway through the fourth quarter.

“We’ve become much better this year with ball pressure,” Spalding said. “We know that ball pressure makes it harder to pass or shoot, so we’re cutting off passing lanes and just trying to swarm the ball out front and get offenses out of sync.

“I think our basketball IQ is much better this year. Communication on defense, aggressive on the ball — those have been the keys.”