SEDALIA, Mo. — After winning the Class 5 District 7 championship on Tuesday, the Carl Junction Lady Bulldogs was in action against the Lincoln College Prep Lady Blue Tigers in the Class 5 state quarterfinals Saturday afternoon, at State Fair Community College.

The Lady Bulldogs came out on fire in the first quarter, but the Lady Blue Tigers made it a close game all the way to the end of the game. Carl Junction hung on to win 55-51 over Lincoln College Prep.

Destiny Buerge posted a double-double with a team high in points with 28 and grabbing 13 rebounds. Kylie Scott scored nine points and had nine rebounds before fouling out the game, while Dezi Williams chipped in eight points and 10 boards. The Lady Bulldogs advance to the Final Four in Springfield. They will play Notre Dame (Cape Girardeau) Friday, March 17 at 6 p.m. at Missouri State University.

Destiny Buerge says, “It’s really exciting because my freshman year we actually got to this point and then it got cut off because of Covid and it just sucked then, but now we get to advance and we get to experience State and we hopefully go and win.”

Allie Wrestler said, “It’s so exciting. We’re ready…we’ve been hoping for this for years. It’s huge. It really impacts the game when they’re all cheering for us.”

Coach Brad Shorter mentioned, “It’s certainly exciting and…you know we were in this game last year and got knocked out, but our kids wanted to get back and give ourselves that opportunity. You know we didn’t play especially well but we did what we needed to do. It was kind of a possession basketball game late in the year and we were able to control the tempo at times and were strong with the ball and I felt like our kids did a great job tonight.”