For about 28 minutes, Wednesday’s Sturgeon tournament first-round girls game was even.

Community R-6 vs Paris in Sturgeon Girls Tournament Photo Gallery

Community R-6 and Paris followed their matchup on Friday with a tight contest throughout the night until the Lady Trojans closed the game with a 12-0 run to give Community a 48-36 victory. The Lady Trojans earn a rematch of last season’s championship game with Salisbury in the semifinals while Paris faces South Callaway.

Neither team gained much of an offensive edge up until four minutes left with the game tied at 36 and the biggest lead being four points. Brooklynn Glasgow was playing with zero points and three fouls sustained in the first half, but quickly flipped her fortune with three 3-pointers during Community’s closing run to pay Paris back for a 64-42 loss on Friday during Community’s Homecoming.

“I was pretty ticked off that I had three fouls in the first half and had to sit out almost all the second quarter,” Glasgow said. “That 20-point loss last week was not OK for me and so I had my internal burn, as (head) coach (Bob Curtis) would say.”

Melanie Moore had a game-high 21 points and six steals in Paris’ previous meeting with Community (10-6) and had 14 points this time. There was one play when Moore executed a pass on the run to Sophia Crusha, who proceeded to score the bucket in stride with her arms above her head.

“It was cool, wasn’t it? Sophia’s a pretty good athlete, and Mel put it right where it needed to be,” Paris head coach Garrett Thomas said. “Our offense definitely runs through (Moore). She is what allows us to push in transition a lot. When she got in foul trouble, it kind of neutralized that, and we went through a long stretch where we didn’t score very many.”

Glasgow said Community had some time to prepare for its rematch with Paris (5-12) and didn’t waste it.

“We focused huge in practice with these couple of snow days that we had on transition defense,” Glasgow said. “We watched film, and Paris beat us in transition almost every time and we weren’t back to stop them.”

Curtis said the Lady Trojans finished just the right way by outscoring Paris 18-3 in the fourth quarter and received big performances from Peyton Beamer with 19 points, seven rebounds, four 3-pointers and three steals and Kylie Brooks with a double-double of 16 points and 15 rebounds. He said he was much more pleased with Community’s defense this time around, which rivaled some its best of the season since this was the fourth time its opponent was held to under 40 points. After that, Curtis said he was confident his team could have an offensive stretch like the final four minutes.

“We knew we had a shot to beat them if we held them to under 50,” Curtis said. “They got around us with their dribble a lot last time. We would close out, and they’d get to the rim. We made a concerted effort to make them shoot jump shots.”

That strategy worked out for Paris early as Reese Sutton nailed all four of 3-pointers in the first half before she finished with a team-high 16 points to go with five rebounds. Melanie Moore added three 3-pointers.

Thomas said each defense stopped their opponent in their tracks frequently but liked when the Lady Coyotes attacked in transition. He said they weren’t as effective on the run like in the last meeting, which led to Paris shooting 42 percent from the field, and dipped overall offensively after only trailing 22-20 at halftime.

“At times, I felt like we were trying to attack out of the wrong areas,” Thomas said. “We were 3-for-13 at the free-throw line, and they were 10-for-24 so there was a little of a discrepancy there.”

Thomas said being more active on the offensive glass could have led to more free-throw opportunities for Paris, but Community had too many down the stretch. The lanky Brooks, in particular, presented problems with 11 rebounds in the second half, but Thomas said that’s not the full story.

“She’s a great rebounder so that’s definitely part of it,” Thomas said. “The unit as a whole does a good job of crashing the boards. She cleans it up, but a lot of the girls are going in there and are drawing other girls off of the Brooks girl sometimes.”

Curtis pointed out Brooks has touched 20 and 30 points several times in the Sturgeon’s gym so she was comfortable.

“She’s a double-double every night,” Curtis said. “She really gets off the floor better than most girls and is tough to handle on the offensive glass. When she uses the backboard and squares up, she’s a load and is hard to handle.”

Community moves on to face Salisbury (11-5) at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the high school gym for the semifinals in what will be a rematch of last season's Sturgeon championship game that Salisbury won. The Lady Coyotes take on South Callaway (3-14) at 5 p.m. Friday in the high school gym in the Sturgeon consolation rounds, hoping to improve their rebounding from what it was late against Community.

"Obviously, we're the underdog, and we like that role," Curtis said. "We're excited to play Salisbury again."

"They're a young group, and we're also a pretty young group," head coach Garrett Thomas said. "I saw them throw a lot of different things at Salisbury, and they've got a couple of athletes that are pretty physical. The rebounding is going to be a factor again."