THOMASVILLE — The goal for the Thomas County Central Yellow Jackets Tuesday night was to improve on defense, coach Deatrice Hose said.

Also woven into that: Keeping Albany’s China Marcus in check.

The Yellow Jackets came through on both, taking a 48-31 region win over Albany at Thomas County Central High School.

“Hopefully this will get us going in the right direction,” Hose said. The Yellow Jackets (5-12, 4-4 1-AAAA) have six games left on the schedule before the region tournament.

Central started off the night slow, but Ashley O’Neal contributed six points at the backend of the quarter to give the Jackets a 12-8 lead to go into the second quarter.

Then the defense really came out firing. O’Neal had a huge block that Jade Guyton turned into points while forced turnovers kept Albany (2-13, 2-9 1-AAAA) at only three shot attempts in the quarter.

The Yellow Jackets steadily increased their lead to 26-13 with points from Markescia Reynolds, Bryana Scott, Erica Edwards and a mid-quarter 3-pointer from Guyton.

The only opportunities Albany mustered were foul shots, but it didn’t take advantage of the freebies. The team shot 3-for-10 from the line. Marcus took a rebound the length of the court near the end of the quarter for the team’s only basket of the eight minutes.

Central really brought the defensive heat in the second half. The team came out with a full-court press that kept Albany from playing much offense.

“In this case we thought it better to take out [Marcus], we got her out of the way because she basically dominated on the press last time,” said Hose.

The Jackets lost to Albany, 35-33, in early December.

“So we tried to save the second half for the press because we had more legs. First half we tried to play more of a zone-type defense,” she said.

Marcus had 14 points overall, split into seven-point halves. But he only had one early basket in the third quarter, then went 5-for-8 from the line late in the fourth quarter.

“We do better pressing the second half than we do in the first because it gives us a second chance to kind of see what’s going to happen, where the go-to is,” Hose said. “I noticed with them it’s much better to do a full court press in the second half.”

Caprina Fleno scored six in the third quarter for Central, but Jasmine Walden nailed a 3-pointer, along with a free throw and bucket, to keep the scoring about even between the teams. The Jackets took a 37-23 lead into the fourth quarter.

Most of both team’s fourth-quarter points came from free throws as the game slowed. The Jackets scored 11 more, enough to give them the 17-point win but slightly less than their goal of 15-points a quarter.

“That’s for every game. That way that kind of let’s them know whether they need to pick it up if they’re dragging,” Hose said. “And if they don’t meet their mark, they say it before I do. You always hear somebody say, ‘Hey ladies, let’s go, we got to get that mark.’”

The Yellow Jackets scored 12, 14, 11 and 11. It was a full team effort, with no one statistical star. Edwards had a team-high 10 points followed by nine points each from seniors Scott and O’Neal.

“Our seniors really stepped it up leadership wise tonight,” Hose said. “I’m really proud of that.”

Fleno finished with six, Guyton with five, SaOrieon Parker with four, Reynolds with three and Porsha Freeman with two.

Central plays Westover on the road Friday, then returns home for a game against Worth County Saturday.