Extinguishing the Trail Blazers 53-17, the girls’ basketball team started District 9-5A play with a win against Lebanon Trail on Tuesday evening.

“It was nice to see us go out and have really good energy and focus, because despite the fact that Lebanon Trail is a young team, and kind of an inexperienced team, those are the teams that time and again you may look over and not come in as prepared,” head coach Ross Reedy said. “Our girls were very prepared, so to be able to see them do that and execute over the course of four quarters and do it the right way with class and still playing really hard was nice to see.”

For the senior Makenzi Glover, it was just the beginning of a season with room to improve.

“Overall it was a solid win for us,” Glover said. “We made some defensive goals for ourselves that we didn’t completely meet, but we will be able to easily learn from those and get better.” After playing multiple 6A schools in various non-district games and tournaments, Glover believes having faced off against tough competition has helped prepare the girls for district play.

“I would say that our non-district schedule is a bit more difficult than our district games,” Glover said. “We intentionally make our non-district schedule hard by playing some of the top teams in the state. This helps prepare us for the tough district opponents that we will play.”

Having earned their first win, Glover sees this victory as a step in the right direction.

“This win is a great way to start off district play,” she said. “Our goal is to be district champions and so starting off 1-0 is great for us.”