The Marshalltown girls’ basketball team has battled illness since the calendar flipped to 2026. It hasn’t been as evident as it was on Monday night.

The Bobcats looked lethargic and lackluster in a 70-24 shellacking at the hands of Cedar Rapids Jefferson, falling to 0-3 in the new year to drop to 7-4 overall.

MHS hast lost four of its last five games going into Tuesday’s Iowa Alliance Conference contest at Des Moines North.

“Ultimately I think that game reflected what the last week has been like for us,” said MHS head coach Brian Murphy. “We have not had everybody together on the floor since last Monday. We’ve had at least one if not multiple people out.

“We had a lot of girls on the floor tonight that were physically on the floor but just had no energy at all.”

Cedar Rapids Jefferson (3-8) snapped a five-game losing streak as the aggressor from the opening tip. The Bobcats won the jump ball to start the game but turned it over immediately for their first of 34 turnovers on the night.

Without senior Millie Heitmann, who was missing in action due to illness, Marshalltown was no match for Jefferson’s transition game fueled by Bobcat turnovers.

MHS trailed 11-2 after the opening quarter and 26-8 at halftime. The J-Hawks knocked down seven of their nine 3-pointers in the second half, to reach the running clock.

“I kind of walk away ignoring some of the things where I think fatigue exacerbates some of our worst habits,” Murphy said. “From an energy standpoint, our rebounding was not up to our usual standard.

“I think the challenge we face at times is, when you look at a team like Jefferson, they face real aggressive, physical defense every night in their conference. Certainly in our last two games, we’ve gone through that, but I thought against Waterloo East we responded. That’s what I saw tonight is that we responded eventually.”

Murphy said not waiting find out how aggressive the opponent will be is the habit his Bobcats have to break by being that team hard-nosed team first. That certainly wasn’t the case on Monday night.

Cedar Rapids Jefferson jumped out to an 11-0 lead before the Bobcats finally got on the scoreboard with a tough dribble-drive and layup by Amairra Johnson, giving MHS its first points with eight seconds left before the first quarter ended.

Frankie Long scored all of her team-high nine points in the second half, and she added nine rebounds and five blocked shots in the loss. Johnson and Morgan Hilderbrand had five points apiece, Kinsley Bowie added three and Jorja Janssen got two.

Elysionna Westerfield led the J-Hawks with 16 points while Kymara Atwood-Mayes made three 3-pointers on her way to 13 points. Lulu Ulrich finished with nine points as nine different players scored for Jefferson.

The J-Hawks achieved their season-high scoring output (70) as well as their top defensive performance (24) of the season.

“I felt like we didn’t have our fastball tonight, so we were out there throwing curveballs, splitters, spitballs — whatever we could throw. I just didn’t think we’d be able to keep up with them so we were just trying to throw different things at them to at least slow them down a little bit.”

There’s no slowing down for Marshalltown, which heads out on the road Tuesday to Des Moines North before returning home to host Des Moines Roosevelt on Friday.

Cedar Rapids Jefferson 70, Marshalltown 24

CR JEFFERSON (3-8) — Lulu Ulrich 3 2-2 9, Kymara Atwood-Mayes 3 4-4 13, Angeline Troh 2 2-4 6, Elysionna Westerfield 7 2-4 16, Lexi Haller 2 0-2 5, Addyson Luvan 1 0-0 2, Evie Creighton 3 0-0 8, Tianah Howell 3 1-2 8, Mikah Duke 1 0-0 3. TOTALS 25 11-16 70.

MARSHALLTOWN (7-4) — Amairra Johnson 2 1-2 5, Kinsley Bowie 1 1-4 3, Morgan Hilderbrand 1 2-2 5, Jorja Janssen 1 0-0 2, Frankie Long 4 1-3 9, Kendall Brummel 0 0-0 0, Mallory Meyeraan 0 0-0 0, Keira Halsted 0 0-0 0, Melanie Fernandez 0 0-0 0. TOTALS 10 5-11 24.

CR JEFF 11 15 25 19 — 70

MHS 2 6 13 3 — 24

3-Point Goals–CR Jefferson 9 (Atwood-Mayes 3, Creighton 2, Ulrich, Howell, Duke, Haller), MHS 1 (Hilderbrand). Team Fouls–CR Jefferson 15, MHS 12. Fouled Out–none. Technical Foul–Duke.