Olathe Northwest ( 3-7 ) took the lead in the first quarter and never relinquished it enroute to a 48-34 victory over Junction City in the first round of the January Jam Invitational in Valley Center, Kansas.

The Blue Jays did not get a lot of scoring inside around the basket.  Blue Jay coach Pat Battle noted his team also missed a lot of shots inside as well. “But the big thing is we’re not getting enough in there.”  Battle said you want teams to shoot 50 percent inside so that means’ they’ll miss one out of every two. “The key is how many you’re going to get in there. And, quite honestly, we did too much standing around and watching a little bit today. Guy goes up and shoots, it doesn’t go, but there’s nobody there to rebound the basketball.”

Battle stated the Blue Jays have to do a better job as a team of rebounding the ball, “particularly on the offensive end.”

Junction City ( 4-5 ) was led in scoring by a pair of guards….Tanner Lueker and Danny Thornton with 13 points.

The Blue Jays will meet Topeka Seaman in the consolation round of the tournament on Friday at 3:15 p.m. Seaman fell to Blue Valley Northwest 73-47.   The game can be heard on KJCK AM, The Talk of JC, with the broadcast beginning at 3 p.m.