Coming out of the locker room in their gymnasium strong in the second half, the Arts & Sciences Lady Patriots dominated the backboards on the way to beating Marion County 58-40 in a Region 3-A quarterfinal Monday night.
It was a slow start for both teams. When the second quarter began, the Lady Patriots began to take control with a 13-6 run, and they led 27-16 at halftime.
Lennex Walker opened up the scoring for CSAS with 12 points in the half, while Keturah Billen helped with seven. They each finished the game with 16 points.
"When we go into games, we focus on three keys," Lady Patriots coach Zach Dragoo said. "We want to take care of the ball, talk on defense and rebound the ball.
"When you play these games that are win or done, it always seems to start slow, but when we got into the flow of the game, our pressure started to wear on them, which gave us some easy baskets that got us going."
Coming out of halftime, the Lady Patriots began to make a few baskets that gave them a comfortable lead going into the fourth quarter.
"First thing we needed to do was to get a few stops and tighten our boards up and we would be right back in the game," Lady Warriors coach Randy Ellis said. "It did not matter what we did, we could not stop them: They played a great game. We knew this was going to be a tough game because they are an aggressive team, having home-court advantage, and they are one of the best teams in the area."
Emily Webb led Marion County with 19 points.
Contact Colby Roach at sports@timesfreepress.com.