“It’s good to get that first postseason game out of the way,” St. Anthony coach Aaron Rios admitted. “Now we need to prepare the next two days. We definitely have some things we need to clean up.”

It appeared the game would be a blowout after the first four minutes. South Central missed its first five shots and turned the ball over eight times during that stretch.

Meanwhile, Nancy Ruholl knocked down a three-pointer, Lucy Fearday scored three points, and both Stacie Vonderheide and Addi Nuxoll added buckets. With 4:01 to play in the opening quarter, the Lady Bulldogs already owned a double-digit lead at 10-0.

But for the remainder of the first half, the team in white struggled. SAHS didn’t shoot real well, turned the ball over six times, got into foul trouble and gave up multiple second-chance baskets after the Lady Cougars grabbed an offensive rebound.

Brooklyn Garrett scored on back-to-back possessions, both times after grabbing an offensive board, helping South Central get to within 16-9 at the end of the period.

The Lady Cougars kept it close in the second quarter, as well. Brooke Cowger scored – again after an offensive rebound – to narrow the gap to four points, 19-15. A bucket by Garrett and a pair of foul shots by Kaitlyn Swift kept it a four-point margin until Nuxoll scored right before the end of the half to send the Lady Bulldogs to the locker room with a 27-21 edge.

Had South Central made a few more free throws, it would have even been closer. But the Lady Cougars missed five foul shots in the opening half.

“At halftime, I told the girls we were not playing up to our standards, especially in that second quarter,” Rios noted. “We were in a our full-court man-to-man press, but unfortunately, we committed a bunch of ticky-tacky fouls. Plus, we were lackadaisical on the boards. We weren’t boxing out at all. I challenged them to get back to the way we’re capable of playing basketball.”

The girls must have taken that message to heart because the second half was totally different.

Fearday scored just 31 seconds into the third quarter and the onslaught began. St. Anthony’s half-court zone caused the Lady Cougars problems and resulted in 14 second-half turnovers (25 in the game). And repeatedly, the Lady Bulldogs got the ball out and raced downcourt quickly, resulting in numerous uncontested baskets underneath.

It was an eight-point margin two minutes into the third period, but SAHS then went on a 20-2 run over a seven-minute period that was not only game-changing, but game-ending.

Vonderheide and Fearday combined to score 18 of the team’s 24 points in the quarter, helping the Lady Bulldogs expand the lead to 51-27. Vonderheide then hit a jumper and Fearday added a pair of free throws to cap the 20-2 surge and make it 55-27.

“We really delivered in that third quarter,” Rios said. “I told the girls at halftime we needed to score at least 20 points in that quarter and we did. I figured if we could do that, we should be in pretty good shape.”

Vonderheide and Fearday combined to score to 43 points in the game, with Vonderheide finishing with 22 and Fearday adding 21. Nuxoll and Ruholl both had eight points and Anna Faber added four.

The Lady Bulldogs improved to 26-5 on the season.