JAMESTOWN — Some days, the shots just don’t fall.

That day was Tuesday for the Blue Jay girls basketball squad.

“St. Mary’s came out more aggressive than we did and we couldn’t match their intensity tonight,” JHS head coach Andy Skunberg said. “They shot very well tonight and they were hot and they were all confident. They were making that extra pass and they were hitting shots. Give ’em credit for knocking everything down tonight.”

On the flip side:

“That’s probably the worst shooting performance that we’ve had,” Skunberg said. “We couldn’t buy any hoops — we had a lot of good looks but we couldn’t get any to fall.

“A lot of it is rushing our shots and sometimes it’s just contagious,” he said of not being able to make shots. “When a couple of people miss everyone kind of gets down and we don’t have that confidence.”

Skunberg’s crew of freshmen and sophomores dropped 69-36 to the Saints. Jamestown is now 1-9 in WDA play and 4-11 overall. The Blue Jays have one more on the docket before the week is out — a road tilt against Legacy on Thursday. The Jays and Sabers are slated to square off at 6 p.m.

The Blue Jays and Saints were in an offensive standoff the opening three minutes of play until Blue Jay sophomore Haley Attleson hit a 3-pointer to put the home team out in front.

The lead didn’t last all that long.

St. Mary’s shooting got hot early and the Saints went on a 12-1 run to take control. The eight-point differential was the closest the Jays would get to the Saints.

Down 14 late in the first, Adisyn Yunck scored on back-to-back possessions to bring the Jays back within single digits but it was too little too late. St. Mary’s ran with the lead the rest of the way to close out the second half 33 points ahead of the home team.

Yunck was the Jays’ leading scorer with 11 points while Leah Trumbauer strung together a seven-point second half to give her 10 points in total. Attleson accounted for six of the team’s 36 points while Mea Ulland, Mari Anderson and Amelia Newman were all responsible for adding nine to the scorebooks.

Natalie Benning, Lexi Gerving, Mataya Messer and Journey Oukrap all cracked into double digits for the Saints scoring 19, 17, 15 and 10 respectively.

“We’re learning and we’re trying to build,” Skunberg said. “We have girls who are freshmen and sophomores and this is their first time playing in big games like these. It comes with experience. We’ll figure it out.”

St. Mary’s 69, Jamestown 36

SM 35 34 — 69

JHS 16 20 — 36

SM — Natalie Benning 19, Lexi Gerving 17, Mataya Messer 15, Journey Oukrap 10, Abby Schmidt 5, Savannah Schweitzer 2, Gretchen Boll 1. Totals: 27 FG, 8-13 FT, 14 fouls. 3-pointers: Benning 3, Gerving 2, Messer 1, Schmidt 1.

JHS — Adisyn Yunck 11, Leah Trumbauer 10, Haley Attleson 6, Mari Anderson 3, Amelia Newman 3, Mea Ulland 3. Totals: 13 FG, 5-15 FT, 12 fouls. 3-pointers: Ulland 1, Yunck 1, Anderson 1, Attleson 1, Trumbauer 1.

Katie Ringer is a sports reporter for the Jamestown Sun. Katie joined the Sun staff in the summer of 2019 after graduating from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire with a degree in journalism. She can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 701-952-8460.