BELPRE - After a close first quarter, Belpre outscored visiting Hannan 64-20 over the last three periods to roll past the Wildcats 81-31 in a girls basketball game Friday night.
Sierra Barker and Katelyn Hughes sparked the Golden Eagles, now 3-2, out to a 13-2 lead at 3:12 of the first quarter. But then the 'Cats, now 0-3, gunned in three treys in a row to slice the gap down to just 17-11 at the quarter break.
The second stanza remained relatively close, although Belpre put together a pair of 6-0 mini-runs midway through the quarter and then again in the last 1:30 run-up to the halftime horn to extend the lead to 34-16.
And after a strong 11-1 start to kick off the second half gave the Golden Eagles a 45-17 advantage at the 3:54 mark of the third period, they continued their surge in the final 2:38 of the quarter with a a 9-0 burst, ignited by back-to-back treys by Emily Hughes, to stretch the lead to 54-19 going to the fourth quarter.
The final eight minutes of play saw Belpre push the lead past the 40-point mark and on to 50 in the last minute on Lizzie Adams' trey, a hoop by Hannah Lawrentz and Kenzie Reed's free throw with 16.1 seconds left.
Barker paced the Belpre attack with 19 points, followed by Katelyn Hughes with 17, Emily Hughes with 13, Lawrentz with seven and Lexi Cunningham with six.
For Hannan, Chelsea Meadows led with 13 points, while Pammie Black netted seven and Heather Ellis added six.
''I was pleased with our overall team effort,'' said Belpre head coach Scott Miller, whose girls play next on Monday at Wood County Christian.
''In a game like this where you are markedly better than the other team, you've got to work on the kind of things you need to improve on. For us, two of those are offensive rebounding and sharing the ball. I wish we had done a few other things that were more fundamentally-oriented and have a few less turnovers and better shot selection.''
