Senior forward Taylor Howard scored a career-high 19 points in second-seeded New Bloomfield's 54-29 first-round win over No. 7 Montgomery County in the South Callaway Tournament on Monday night at the high school.
The victory is the eighth in a row for New Bloomfield (11-2).
They'll play either No. 3 Hermann or No. 6 South Callaway in a semifinal matchup at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the high school.
New Bloomfield carried a 31-21 halftime lead and registered double-digit points in all four quarters. Still, head coach Brett Craighead wasn't overly impressed with how his team shot the ball.
"Actually, we didn't shoot the ball very well at all, except for Taylor," Craighead said. "We just couldn't get the ball to go down; we just got a lot of shots and just kept shooting."
New Bloomfield's defense yielded just eight points to Montgomery County in the second half, backing off its pressure defense and choosing to implement a half-court defense.
"We didn't get in the press and we got them to make more mistakes," Craighead said. "It slowed them down a little bit and they threw it away and we were able to make some runs out of our half-court defense."
Freshman guard Madi Craighead supplied New Bloomfield with 13 points and five steals. Senior forward Ashley Kelley totaled 11 points and matched Howard with a team-high six rebounds.
Allie Schlueter paced Montgomery County with 12 points.