The La Salle-Peru girls basketball team played well throughout Thursday’s game against host Somonauk-Leland at the Tim Humes Tournament at Somonauk High School.

The Cavaliers jumped out to a seven-point lead three minutes into the game, then scored nine straight points in the second quarter and finished their final game of the tournament with a 45-28 victory over the Bobcats.

“We have four girls, all starters, that played in the volleyball sectional last week and have really only had a couple days of practice,” La Salle-Peru coach Adam Spencer said, his team now 2-2. ”Then we have some girls that this is their first varsity basketball. We’ll get where we want to go, but it’s going to take time. Despite that I thought, other than not making shots, especially layups, we played pretty well over these first four games."

La Salle-Peru - which hit 17-of-50 [34%] from the field and held a 40-29 rebound edge - was led by seven points each from Alexus Hines [nine steals, three assists, three rebounds], Margaret Boudreau [eight rebounds] and Brianna Ruppert [seven rebounds, two blocks]. Drew Depenbrock added six points, while Emma Jereb and April Pescetto chipped in five points apiece.

“I didn’t really play that well the first three games,” Hines said. “I just struggled overall. Tonight, I just told myself to keep playing hard and things would work out. It was just nice to feel like I played well.

“It’s been a quick switch [from volleyball], but I think we played alright in these first few games. We all know we have things we need to work on but tonight was a good step forward for us.”

Two 10-foot jumpers from Depenbrock and a 3-pointer by Jereb got the Cavaliers started as they led 11-5 after the first quarter.

L-P - which held S-L to 4-of-16 shooting in the first half and came up with 12 turnovers - then received five straight points from Boudreau to start the second followed by consecutive steals turned layups by Hines to help push the lead to 25-11 at halftime.

“We are working on playing that 1-3-1 zone defense, we want to take advantage of our height,” Spencer said. “I felt like as the game went along, we started to get stronger on the defensive end.”

Somonauk-Leland (2-1) opened the second half with hoops from Kiley Mason and Kennedy Barshinger, but L-P responded by going on an 8-0 burst, with Pescetto netting five of those points, and went to the fourth quarter holding a solid 33-17 lead.

The Bobcats - which finished 10-of-38 [26%] from the floor and turned the ball over 24 times - was led by eight points from Ella Roberts, seven points from Mason and six points from Barshinger. Abby Hohmann and Leah Norris each had five rebounds for S-L.

“We always talk about having max effort and controlling the things we can control. Tonight, in the first quarter we didn’t have the right attitude and didn’t put forth the effort we needed.” Somonauk-Leland coach Jason Zaleski said. “We played really strong team basketball in our first two games but tonight we came out sluggish, didn’t have the killer instinct and let [L-P’s height] deflate us.

“We thought we’d be able to score in transition more tonight, but L-P did an excellent job of getting back and forced us to go to our half-court offense. The first two games we scored a ton on the fast break, but tonight it just wasn’t there, so credit L-P. We also just turned the ball over way too much.”

Somonauk/Leland plays Dwight at 8 p.m. on Friday to close out the tournament. La Salle-Peru is back in action Dec. 5 when it opens Interstate 8 Conference play at Morris.