A strong defensive showing allowed the Northmor girls’ basketball team to even its record at 1-1 on Friday.

Hosting Crestline, the Golden Knights battled back from an early 7-3 deficit to score 17 straight points and never look back in earning a 36-22 win.

Head coach Fred Beachy was happy with the win, noting that his team is very inexperienced right now.

“One girl from last year who started,” he said. “A lot of these girls are playing a lot of minutes. I think it helped playing Wednesday night in a hostile place in Crawford. I just told them to take the win and go with it and just focus on getting better every game.”

Northmor opened the scoring in the game with an early three-pointer by Shelby Cooper. However, Crestline would bounce back with seven straight points — five from Jocelyn Noblit — to take a four-point lead at the 5:53 mark of the first quarter. The visitors would not score again until the final seconds of the half.

During that time, Northmor would catch up to and then pass their opponents, using their size and length to dominate the rebounds and give them multiple chances to score. Beachy noted that his team struggled to score at times, but were able to use their rebounding to overcome those misses.

“Really good on the rebounds, but the put-backs were not so good,” he said. “To me, I think it’s hard getting a rebound when they’re in a 2-3. I told them we were bigger than them and go get the rebounds. We just have to focus on putting the ball back in the basket. We did get a lot of second-chance points, but it’s going to hurt if you can’t put the ball back in.”

Cooper and returning starter Madison Simpson started the Northmor run. Cooper hit her second three-pointer of the game to bring the Golden Knights within one and Simpson finished the quarter with four straight points to put her team in front 10-7.

Simpson finished with five points in the second quarter, while Alexis See scored three and Cooper had two. Northmor would boost their lead to a 20-7 count before a late three-pointer by Kennedi Sipes brought the Lady Bulldogs back within 10 going into the break.

Beachy noted that three-pointer was about the only defensive mistake his girls made in the second quarter, adding that his team’s youth means there will be a lot of learning experiences this winter.

“They got three because of a defensive breakdown, but it was something we hadn’t worked on,” he said. “Just putting pressure on the ball and then another girl went up to help and the girl that scored was where she’s supposed to be in her spot. But again, we have three sophomores playing and a freshman playing a lot of minutes. It’s some growing pains this year. We lose one kid, all these kids will be back. This will be a growing thing for us, a learning process.”

While Noblit was able to hit on 10-of-12 free throws in the second half, the rest of the Bulldog team was only able to contribute one basket, allowing Northmor to continue to pull away.

The Golden Knights led by as many as 15 points in the third quarter thanks to three-pointers by Cooper and Maddie May. Simpson scored four points in the fourth and Reagan See added a bucket as Northmor boosted their lead to a 36-20 margin before winning by 14.

Simpson led Northmor with 15 points in the win. Cooper hit three three-pointers on her way to an 11-point showing.

Rob Hamilton can be reached at 419-946-3010, ext. 1807. Connect with him on Twitter at @SportsMCS