At that point, the Lady Hearts had missed their first four shots and turned the ball over four times.

After Madison Mapes scored to get the EHS on the board, the Lady Green Wave ran off the next eight points to build the 20-point cushion with three minutes still left in the opening quarter. At the end of the first eight minutes, it was 24-4.

To the Lady Hearts credit, however, they kept battling. After turning the ball over eight times in the first period, they limited their miscues to just three in the second. Marissa Allie hit a couple shots, Ellla Niebrugge scored three points and Mapes added a pair of free throws to get the hosts to within 31-17 at intermission.

“I thought the girls showed a lot of guts and character to come back and win the second quarter,” Schafer said. “Then we came out in the second half and had a chance to get even closer.”

Meredith Schaefer scored just 12 seconds into the third period to get EHS with 12 points and they had two more possessions to get even closer. But they were unable to connect and Mattoon responded with an 8-0 run to get the lead back up to 20 points at 39-19.

Effingham got within 17 points, but no closer. It was an 18-point margin, 45-27, heading into the fourth period.

After starting the season 7-0, Schafer was anxious to see how his team would respond in their first real test.

“I told the girls before the game that we’d find out where we’re at,” he explained. “We’ll learn a lot from this game. There are definitely some things we need to get figured out. There are going to be six or seven more games like this in our conference.”

A memorable moment came just 90 seconds into the contest when Ramage connected on a three-point shot. That gave her 1,792 career points, the most in school history. She broke the old mark of 1,790, set by Mattoon’s Jody Sanders in 1993.

“In this conference, there have been a lot of great players and she’s certainly one of them,” Schafer said. “Mallory is a phenomenal player. She’s lefthanded and I thought we let her get to her dominant side too often and I was disappointed we let her out-fight us to get some second chance points. But that’s a credit to her. Like I said, she’s a phenomenal player.”

Ramage paced the Lady Green Wave with 23 points, while Pruitt added 18. Mattoon shot 55 percent from the floor, connecting on 23-of-42 attempts. Their pressure forced EHS into 20 turnovers.

The Lady Hearts got six points from both Sawyer Althoff and Saige Althoff and five from Mapes and Schaefer. They connected on 14-of-37 shots, a 38 percent clip. They were just 1-for-10 from behind the arc.

Effingham dipped to 7-1 overall and 1-1 in the Apollo Conference. The Lady Hearts will play at home again Saturday, hosting Mahomet-Seymour in another conference game.

“We’ve had a great season so far,” Schafer said. “I like where we are and I love our chemistry. But there are things we need to improve on.”