A first-round district game Tuesday night that started off as a 3-point shooting clinic turned into a lopsided win for the third-seeded Glasgow Yellowjackets over the very familiar sixth-seeded Slater Wildcats, 94-67.

The victory advances Glasgow to the Class 2 District 7 semifinals against another well-known opponent, New Franklin.

Glasgow won the hosting rights for the boys’ tournament, which will only play to the Yellowjackets’ favor. Glasgow has scored no less than 79 points on Larry Littrell Court over the last three home games, and hopes that translates to big numbers this week.

Glasgow’s opening-round win on Tuesday forced an end to Slater’s season. The Wildcats finish with 11 wins against 15 losses. Four of those losses came against Glasgow, as the two teams faced one another five times this season.

An ancient saying states that familiarity breeds contempt. While that doesn’t appear valid in the case of Glasgow and Slater, familiarly did appear to provide Glasgow with a blueprint for defeating the Wildcats. Slater may have won the first matchup in the Glasgow Tournament with a four-point decision, but the Yellowjackets have owned the last four matchups, winning by an average of 25.5 points a game.

The Wildcats did do something new Tuesday night that caught Glasgow coach Mick Cropp off guard. They came out in a zone defense.

“That’s the fifth time we’ve played them, and they hadn’t played us in any zone yet,” Cropp said after the game. “It took me a little bit by surprise, but apparently not my players. Because they just really hit the ground running, knocking down shots.”

Glasgow’s starting five seemed unfazed by the defensive scheme. Jackson Meyer, Jordan Fuemmeler, and Ryan Graves opened the game with six 3-point shots in the first quarter and combined for 30 first-half points from behind the arc.

“When you shoot the ball well like we came out and shot the ball well, it really cures a lot of ills,” Cropp said. “We got off to a good start. You never know coming in districts how teams are going to react. It’s one and done. We came out loose, played well, shot the ball well, got off to a good start, and just kind of kept it rolling. It’s hard to tell them to stop shooting when they’re making them all.”

Not to be outdone, Slater kept pace from the 3-point arc, knocking down three in the first quarter and one in the second to keep the game close, 26-22 after the first quarter. But Glasgow expanded the gap to 13 points, 49-36, by halftime, outpointing the Wildcats 23-14 in the second quarter.

By the start of the second half, Glasgow had it figured out. While the Jackets continued to score on most trips down to their end, they often held Slater to fruitless one-shot possessions thanks to rebounding by tall senior Preston Thies.

Cropp said controlling the inside game is essential when playing Slater. “The only time we lost to them, they scored 46 points in the paint. It really hurt us inside. So, we made a conscious effort to do a better job on the inside, keeping the ball out of the paint and limiting the shots around the basket.”

And while teams can learn to control the paint with practice and solid execution, guarding Slater’s Brandon Terrill is something else altogether. The junior is an athlete unto himself, who can score virtually anywhere on the court. He finished the night with a team-high 26 points with three 3-point shots and 5-for-7 shooting from the line.

“You don’t guard him; you contain him,” Cropp explained. “That’s all we try and do. We get a guy on him and get some guys ready to help. He can score, and he can distribute really well. He’s a really hard matchup.”

Offensively, Glasgow has an answer for just about any team’s best offensive player with their own senior phenom, Jordan Fuemmeler. With more than 2,000 career points scored so far, he is a force with which few teams can compete.

Fuemmeler was totally dialed on Tuesday, knocking down four 3-point shots—three of which came in the first half—and finishing with a game-high 37 points. He also converted five of eight free-throw shots.

But a team of Glasgow’s caliber doesn’t average 72.5 points per game on the feats of one player alone. Fuemmeler has a substantial supporting cast that combined for 53 points on Tuesday, led by Jackson Meyer’s 27 points. The sophomore banked three shots from the arc and finished 8-for-9 from the line. Ryan Graves sank four 3-point shots to finish with 14 points, and Preston Thies’s inside dominance accounted for 12 points.

And while he doesn’t traditionally light up the scoreboard, junior Zach Sayler is what Cropp considers the team’s best defender.

“Jackson is our second-leading scorer, and he had a really good game tonight. He played well and shot the ball well,” said Cropp. “Ryan Graves stepped up and knocked down some shots. We got some inside production from Preston Thies. Sayler doesn’t get a lot of offensive looks, but he’s really our best defender.”

Glasgow ascended to Class 2 this year. A year ago, the Jackets claimed a district title and emerged as a Class 1 State semifinalist before finishing fourth overall. Moving up to Class 2 places them in a district with two top-10 teams. One of those is Salisbury, the top-ranked team in all of Class 2, on a quest to defend their state title from a year ago. The other is New Franklin, ranked seventh in Class 2 with a record of 24-2 and an outright contender for the district title.

Last week’s schedule for Glasgow is shaping up to be identical to the district tournament. This time, Cropp and his team hope for a different outcome. On Tuesday of last week, they defeated Slater at home, but two days later, lost a two-point thriller to New Franklin.

The second-seeded Bulldogs advanced to the semis with an easy dispatch of seventh-seeded Fayette on Tuesday. Thursday’s semifinal will be the third game between the two high-scoring teams. So far, New Franklin has won both games. The winner of Thursday’s game will advance to the district finals, likely against Salisbury. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m.

Glasgow and New Franklin are each 0-2 against the 24-2 Panthers this season.

As the No. 1 seed, Salisbury received a first-round bye. The Panthers face a quality, yet short-handed, Westran team on Thursday at 6 p.m. The fourth-seeded Hornets, 17-10 overall, won a four-point decision over fifth-seeded Cairo in Tuesday’s opener 57-53. Like New Franklin and Glasgow, Westran is winless against the Panthers, albeit in only one game played this season.