( Great Bend ) — The Junction City Blue Jay boys basketball team ( 2-1 ) raced out to a 20-5 first quarter lead and never really looked back enroute to a 65-45 win over the Great Bend Panthers ( 2-2 ).

The Blue Jays used a strong defensive and their best shooting half of the season to build the lead to 36-20 at halftime. In the first half Junction City hit four three-point baskets, including three by T. J. Poole and one by Ricardo Erans.  Junction City cooled off in the second half but the defense remained strong. The closest Great Bend got in the second half was 11 points.

Junction City finished with 23 points from Poole and 14 from Ricardo Erans.

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In the girls game the Lady Jays  ( 0-3 ) appeared enroute to their own win, but in the closing minutes of the game coughed up a nine-point lead, and fell to Great Bend 65-64.

The winning basket for Great Bend ( 3-1 ) came after the Lady Panthers’ Carley Brack missed a free throw but got a shot after her miss, and from the right wing put up a shot that went in at the final buzzer. Brack had made the first of two free throws to pull Great Bend to within one point, but then missed the second, got the ball back and hit the game winning shot.

The Lady Jays missed four key free throws in the closing seconds of the game that could have sealed a win. Instead they fell to 0-3. Junction City got 12 points from both Kealee Rains and A’kia Fain plus 11 from Ally McKenzie in what was still their best game of the season to this point.