Batavia 60, Burlington Central 36

Batavia girls basketball fans might not see coach Tim DeBruycker employ a 1-3-1 defense anytime soon.

And that will be just fine with DeBruycker's players.

Trailing Burlington Central 17-12 after one quarter, Batavia abandon the 1-3-1 Friday night on Rocket Hill in favor of its traditional man-to-man defense. The result was the Bulldogs (18-3) held the host team to just 19 points the rest of the way and ran away with a 60-36 nonconference win.

"It was a nonconference game and we came out in the first quarter with a 1-3-1, which we just put in this week," said DeBruycker. "It was kind of obvious we didn't know what we were doing so we just went back to the man after that."

Batavia junior Natalie Tarter, who had a game-high 18 points along with 7 rebounds, was glad to see her coach switch the defense after the first quarter.

"We really didn't like it that much," said Tarter of the 1-3-1. "We didn't have enough time to get used to it."

The numbers were staggering after the first quarter. During the first 8 minutes the Rockets (15-7) were 7 of 16 from the field and had 10 rebounds. During the remainder of the game, they made just 8 of 31 shots and had only 13 rebounds.

"We had a lot of opportunities," said Burlington coach Darlene Guyett. "We had bunnies and we had high percentage shots that just weren't falling tonight. We had five-foot shots that we didn't finish."

Batavia didn't exactly rip the cords off the nets. The Bulldogs were 18 of 48 for the game but with Tarter scoring 13 of her 18 points, they owned the second half.

"We just stepped up and ran our plays," said Tarter, who scored 10 points in the third quarter as the Bulldogs turned a 23-23 halftime deadlock into a 38-27 lead going into the fourth quarter.

"We didn't panic and we ran our game."

The Bulldogs also got 14 points from junior Kelsey Oswald and 12 from junior Kara Lydon. Batavia sealed the win with an 18-for-22 performance at the free-throw line, including an 8 of 8 night from Oswald.

Batavia was also able to get Central in foul trouble as leading scorers Cory Bazany and Melanie Laird each had to sit significant minutes on the bench in the second half with four fouls.

"Getting Bazany and Laird in foul trouble made a difference," DeBruycker said. "When Bazany had to go out, that's when we made our run."

Laird led the Rockets with 12 points while Bazany had 11 and sophomore Jordan Maisto 10.