PE ELL — The Pe Ell girls basketball team got back into the swing of things after an 11-day break with a win Tuesday at home, beating Oakville 48-31 in a non-league contest.
The Trojans (5-2, 1-1 1B CVL) held the Acorns (1-4) to just 11 points in the first half, and finished their night with 19 steals as a team.
“I think we came out aggressive,” first-year Pe Ell coach Kelsey Lennox said. “We had a lot of intensity, put a half-court press on. We hadn’t really run that, so it was good to see what the girls could do and get some steals and kind of cause some chaos with that. I think our defense, at the beginning at least, pushed our offense forward.”
That offense flowed through the middle and into the key, as the Trojans’ post players went to work early, and the Acorns had few answers for them.
Peyton Zock led the way with 14 points, and that opened up room for the guards to go to work. Brookelynn King — the lone upperclassman on the Pe Ell roster — racked up 12 points on drives from one wing, and Emma Kissner had 10 coming from the other.
“Trying to utilize the inside game and use them inside-out to get some shots up, absolutely we’ve been trying to do that more and more,” Lennox said. “It’s rare that we ever have tall girls at Pe Ell, so we’re trying to utilize that.”
King and Zock both posted double-doubles, adding 11 and 10 rebounds to their lines, respectively. Karli Phelps led the defense with seven steals, while Kissner had five and King added four.
Ui Siufanua led Oakville with 11 points, and Andrea Mendez-Castro had seven.
The Acorns found a bit more offense in the fourth quarter, drilling three 3-pointers, but couldn’t get the deficit any closer than 14.
Pe Ell, fresh off one long break, will now get another, waiting until Jan. 3 to return to action against Mossyrock. Oakville has one more game before the calendar flips over, facing Sound Christian on the road Friday.
