The Corner girls basketball team advanced to the finals of the Jefferson County Girls Basketball Tournament at Shades Valley, only to run out of gas and fall to McAdory by 20 points.

McAdory made their way to the paint for easy baskets for much of the night, on their way to a convincing 61-41 win in the small-schools championship game Friday night.

“They were able to up the tempo on us and they had the pace of the game the way they wanted it,” said Corner coach Jeff Smith.

McAdory was armed with tournament MVP Sydney King, and they used her well. King led all scorers with 19 points. The champs also got a double-double out of Sydney Thurston, who put up 15 points while securing 10 rebounds.

Corner landed two girls on the All-Tournament team, Carrissa Reeves and Andrea Debord.

The attention was nothing new for Reeves, as McAdory’s defense showed her plenty of it on the floor. Reeves was tightly guarded all night and finished the contest with only five points.

“We go as Carrissa goes, and I thought at times she really kept us in the game,” said Smith.

Debord was the only player to reach double digits in scoring for Corner. She finished with 15 points, five of them coming from the free-throw line.

After Corner’s senior Taylor Sloan dropped a pair of early threes, McAdory tightened the defense and choked off any easy looks from outside. Corner got just one three-point shot away in the second quarter after shooting 50 percent from behind the arc in first eight minutes. 

With a 48-30 advantage after three quarters of play, McAdory went to their bench and still found a way to extend the lead.