T-L Photo/SETH STASKEY UNION LCOAL junior Lauren Miller drives to the basket as Barnesville's Ava McFarland defends during Saturday afternoon's Division III sectional co-final in Morristown.

MORRISTOWN – Union Local took a very business-like approach to its Division III sectional co-final Saturday afternoon.

It paid dividends, too.

The Jets took another step in what they hope proves to be a lengthy journey through the postseason with a decisive 63-30 victory over a scrappy and improved Barnesville squad.

“At the end of the day, we hung in there and our defense makes it tough on teams to score,” a satisfied Scooter Tolzda said. “Give Barnesville and Coach (Ty) Leach credit because they came in here with a good game plan and took some real swings at us.”

The Shamrocks took some swings and landed a few punches, especially in the first quarter. Barnesville, which had lost twice to the Jets during the regular season, spotted Union Local an 11-0 lead, but closed to within 16-10 at the quarter.

Unfortunately for the Shamrocks, the difficulty scoring that Tolzda referenced – coupled with both of the Jets senior leaders being fully involved offensively – simply proved to be too much to overcome.

“We executed our game plan very well in the first half, but as the game progressed, a lot of shots started falling for Torre (Kildow), which took us out of our game plan. We tried to compensate for that, but the size advantage they have just creates a lot of open gaps.”

Senior Torre Kildow, who had been deferring to a degree on the offensive end in the last handful of games, got going early and really was never slowed down. She finished with a season-high 32 points, which was 11 more than she had scored in the previous three games combined.

“Barnesville was really collapsing on Reagan (Vinskovich) hard, so it left a lot of opportunities and Torre really got going,” Tolzda said. “We need Torre to score. We know that. Realistically, all season, everyone has been putting someone on Torre and someone on Reagan. They’ve just been daring our other girls to beat them and you can’t forget about anyone on our team.”

Kildow, who surpassed the 1,700-point mark for her career, scored 19 points in the first half, which helped spark the Jets to a 34-18 lead at halftime.

In the third quarter, Union Local really opened things up. Kildow again came up big, knocking down three bonus goals in the period. As she was working around the arc, senior Reagan Vinskovich got going, too. She scored eight points in the third. All told, Union Local outscored the Shamrocks, 20-5.

Vinskovich, who drilled the third, 3-pointer of her career in the fourth, finished with 21 points and six rebounds to back Kildow, who completed the double-double with 11 rebounds.

No other Jet player scored more than five.

Barnesville, which finished its first season under Leach with a 6-18 record, was led by Ellie Thompson’s eight points. Lilly Welch added seven.

“Union Local is a great team and we were thankful for the opportunity to play them three times, and I feel like we competed better (Saturday) than we did in the other two meetings,” Leach said. “We’ve really grown as a team. The girls really stepped up and we feel like there’s a future for us.”

While the Shamrocks will shift gears to spring sports, Union Local returns to the court Wednesday at 7 at Cambridge High School against West Muskingum, which needed overtime to dispatch Meadowbrook.