TIPTON - Before the season, Tipton coach Jason Culpepper felt good about his team's chances to win games where the shots weren't falling because he knew the team defense and effort would be there regardless.
The Cardinals' 41-27 win over Chamois on Tuesday at the Tipton Tournament backed that up.
Tipton struggled to cash in its open looks for much of the game, but its defense held the Pirates to just 10 second half points to allow the Cardinals to slowly pull away in their tournament opener.
"The girls understand what we have to do to win games," Culpepper said. "Chamois always plays extremely good defense. We've never scored a lot of points on them because they are an extremely fundamentally sound defensive team.
" Lucky for us, our girls are extremely smart and they want to win more than they want anything. They understand that they have to play defense every possession. They make every possession like a war."
Senior guard Maddie Eldringhoff carried the Tipton offense early with nine first quarter points. The only other Cardinals player to register a point in the first was senior Alyson Brant, who tallied five of her seven points in the frame.
Tipton struggled to pull away in the first half in large part because the 3-pointers weren't falling. The Cardinals finished the night 2-for-12 from beyond the arc.
After entering halftime down three, the Pirates took a one-point lead early in the third, but Tipton soon regained control of the game through Brooklyn Pace. The sophomore led all scorers with 19 points, 15 of which came after the break. Pace scored all but six of the Cardinals' second half points.
"Brooklyn works extremely hard all year round to make herself as good as she is," Culpepper said. "She understood that we weren't getting very good looks in the halfcourt and decided that she could get easy points in transition. That's what good players do, they find ways to get easy buckets for themselves and their team."
Though they were tested for large portions of the game, the Cardinals ultimately played like a squad that's more than comfortable with a target on their back. As the host team and coming off four straight 20-win seasons, that's just the way Tipton prefers it.
"Playing in a packed gym, in an atmosphere like this, it's a great opportunity to prepare us for our district games," Culpepper said. " At the end of the season, we want to have that target on our backs. If you have it, that means you're doing something right."