The California Lady Pintos hosted Eugene Thursday night at California High School, where the varsity defeated the Lady Wildcats 62-28.
The Lady Pintos outscored Eugene in all four frames, 15-12, 15-3, 23-12 and 9-1.
California led 15-12 after the first quarter, 30-15 at the half and 53-27 after three quarters.
"This was a tale of two different halves," California Coach Bobby Sangster said. "In the first half, we couldn't get any kind of flow going, but we had a nice second half where we threw some different presses and defenses and the girls executed very well, which sparked us. We have a long way to go, but tonight was an improvement."
California was led by Sydney Deeken with 19, followed by Kelsey Roush with 11. Morgan Henley chipped in with nine points, all 3-pointers. Meleigha Caudel added seven points and Kamryn Koetting scored seven.
Eugene was led by Mackenzie Farris with seven points.
California's JV also defeated Eugene in a close contest, 33-32.
The varsity Lady Pintos are currently participating in the Versailles Tournament (Dec. 10-14), where California faced Osage Monday night in pool play and defeated the Lady Indians 46-26.
"We've got a real special bunch of girls here," Sangster said following the win. "We weren't able to practice last night, so I was a little uncomfortable about that. But fortunately the girls came out with a great amount of intensity and focus to get the snowball rolling early, and we kind of overwhelmed Osage tonight."
The Lady Pintos jumped out to an early 15-5 lead in the first quarter, then outscored the Lady Indians 14-4 in the second and 6-4 in the third to lead 35-13 going into the final frame. Osage turned up the heat to outscore California 13-11 in the fourth, however, the damage was already done by the Lady Pintos, who came away with the victory.
California was led by Henley with 10 points, followed by Roush with nine, while Deeken and Koetting each scored eight points.
"These girls are learning and starting to figure each other out," Sangster said. "We accomplished all of our major goals tonight. I was very happy with our rebounding and our push; we are getting better at that. We were lucky tonight to be able to sit some of the girls that gave us major minutes and allow some of the younger girls some playing time as well."
Osage was led by Isabel Morris with six points.
California (5-1) played Fatima Tuesday, Dec. 11, at the Versailles Tourney, however results were not available at press time.
The championship game of the tournament will be played at 8 p.m. Friday.
California will host Russellville Monday, Dec. 17, beginning with the JV game at 6 p.m.