The new girls basketball season got underway for Hillcrest Academy Friday as they Ravens traveled to Tri-County to meet the Trojans. Hillcrest fell by a 45-30 score. Trailing 13-5 after the first eight minutes, the Ravens made their move in the second quarter, keyed by a 9-0 run that a four point play and personal 7-0 run for Malia Yoder to leave the score at 19-16 at the break. In the third, Tri-County rolled out of the locker room with a 10-0 run, putting the Ravens through a five minute drought to push the lead as high as 13, before finishing down the stretch. After the contest, Raven head coach Mitchell Drey talked about his team’s solid second quarter, individual standouts and his takeaways. “We got some young girls and it looked like they were having fun, both on offense and defense. That’s going to be the biggest things for us, having those runs and stretching them out. Turning four minutes into five minutes, into a quarter.  We know we’re going to have those growing pains. That nine point run was huge for us. Malia (Yoder) did a great job. I knew that she could do this. She was capable last year a couple of times and we have to keep this going. She’s the returning starter from last year and she handled the pressure. We knew going in it was going to be a tough thing for her. She has to kind of hold that mantle of the other four that we lost (to graduation). Claire (Withrow) comes in, she knows the game of basketball inside and out. She had a couple of turnovers here and there but, again, she’s a freshman. I watched the same thing last year with Malia against this Tri-County team and by the end of the year I was trusting her as much as I was trusting the other starters who had been in the program for three years. So I’m expecting Claire to have that same kind of growth this season. It’s going to be awesome to see those two work.”

Unofficially, Hillcrest lost the turnover battle 34-22, and were out rebounded by 14. Malia Yoder led the Raven attack with 13 points, Claire Withrow had 11. Ayla Hall paced Tri-County with 10. The Ravens are back on the court Tuesday when they take on Columbus.