Dec 21, 2012 By Adam Brewer for The 3 min read

WAYNESBURG — The Belle Vernon girls basketball squad led 24-8 at the end of one, and rolled to an 82-43 victory over Waynesburg Central Thursday night in Section 4-AAA action.

“The key tonight was that we hit a lot of our outside shots,” Belle Vernon coach Lisa Fairman said. “We hit some threes and worked hard on the boards. We controlled the tempo from the get-go. We were aggressive in our transition game.”

The Lady Leopards (5-1, 2-0) scored a season-high in points and had 11 different players reached the box score, including a game-high 30 points from Jessica Slagus.

With the loss, the Lady Raiders (2-4, 0-2) dropped its fourth straight game after opening the season winning the Jefferson-Morgan Tipoff Tournament.

“Belle Vernon played hard, aggressive team defense,” Waynesburg Central coach John VanMeter said. “They also shot the ball well from the perimeter tonight. Their outside game opened up some inside baskets for them. Their speed and fast-break offense was hard to defend and we just had no answer for it.”

Slagus had eight points apiece in the first and second quarters, as Belle Vernon used its experience, size and up-tempo offense to frustrate Waynesburg. Slagus also recorded 10 points in the third quarter.

“Jessica is a team leader for us,” Fairman said. “She’s so important to this team on both ends of the floor. She is a total team player and her teammates are finding her the ball in the paint for some easy lay-ups. She shows so much hustle on the court.”

The Lady Leopards ended the second stanza on a 10-5 run and held a 42-18 lead at half.

A three-pointer by Natalie Bashada in the early moments of the third period gave the visitors a 53-20 lead, but the Lady Raiders rallied with an old-fashioned, three-point play by Lyndsey Huhn to make it 59-28 with 2:24 left in the third.

The Lady Leopards held a 25-12 scoring edge in the third stanza, and also collected a 15-13 scoring advantage in the final eight minutes of play.

Kaitlyn Slagus tallied six of her 14 points in the final quarter, while Bashada was the other double-figure scorer for Belle Vernon with 12 points.

“I always stress defense and rebounding,” Fairman said. “You should never have a bad night on either one of those phases of the game. We are improving and we just want to be consistent for the rest of the section schedule.”

Waynesburg was led by 11 points from Michelle Cesa. Huhn ended her night with 10 points and Danielle Jacobs scored nine points for the Lady Raiders, who will try to get back into the win column today with a non-section affair against West Greene.

“We just need to get back on track,” VanMeter said. “We have to maintain possession of the ball, box out and get to the free throw line. We are shooting at a decent clip this year, but we just turn the ball over too much. Tonight, we had 24 turnovers, and you can’t do that at this level.”