Not many basketball teams can be shut out for an entire quarter and still come away with a victory.

But the Effingham girls proved it can be done.

The Lady Hearts were blanked during the second quarter Saturday afternoon. In fact, they went nearly 12 minutes without denting the scoreboard.

But when the final horn sounded, the EHS girls had posted a 40-35 victory at Mattoon.

The Lady Hearts got seven first-quarter points from Meredith Schaefer and built a slim 9-8 lead. But they didn’t score again until the third quarter. By then, the Lady Green Wave had built a 17-9 halftime lead.

Ella Niebrugge knocked down a pair of 3-pointers to help Effingham surge back and tie the game at 21-21. But Mattoon scored the final four points of the period to take a 25-21 advantage into the final eight minutes.

That’s when Taylor Armstrong came alive. The senior post player poured in 11 points, including 5-of-6 from the foul stripe, during the fourth quarter and helped the Lady Hearts outscore the hosts 19-10 and come away with the Apollo Conference victory.

“We went quite a while without scoring, but the girls stayed the course,” EHS coach Jeff Schafer said. “Our girls hung in there, took the lead with about three minutes left and never gave it up.

“It was a total team effort,” Schafer added. “Everyone did something to help us pull this out. I’m very proud of the way we played.”

Armstrong finished with a team-high 13 points and Niebrugge added 12. Both Armstrong and Schaefer pulled down seven rebounds.

Effingham, now 2-1 on the season and 2-0 in conference play, will be in each action three times this week and all three are conference games and are at home – Monday night against Teutopolis; Thursday against Lincoln; and Saturday against Charleston.