Keira McCann knew that Geneva’s last two games against Batavia were a bit rough.

After dropping both games to their heated rival last season, McCann knew that they wanted things to turn things around.

And Friday night, she did just that.

McCann put up 14 points and added five assists, while the Vikings hunkered down on defense to help secure a 42-30 victory over the visiting Bulldogs.

“We put a lot of pieces together that we’ve been working on over the past few weeks,” McCann said. “It all really fell together, especially in that third quarter, and it was really great.”

The Vikings (2-8 overall, 1-3 DuKane) got a lot of their offensive success from behind the 3-point line, making six of 16 shots from behind the arc, with McCann making three of those.

“We’ve been working a lot on getting that spacing big time and we really kept that,” McCann said. “We were confident in our shots, and a lot of girls stepped up and made big shots to build that lead.”

While the offense kept the momentum going, the Vikings’ defense turned into a wall, not allowing anything through the hoop for over 14 minutes of play which spanned from the beginning of the second quarter to the beginning of the fourth. During that time, the Vikings built a four-point lead to as many as 25 points.

“We’re pretty good defensively, that’s never been our issue so far this year,” Vikings coach Sarah Meadows said. “Our kids did an awesome job on the defensive side. Even if we didn’t get a steal, we were getting deflections, and our kids were active up there.”

A big part of that disrupting effort was sophomore Emma Peterson, who used all of her 6-foot frame to come away with five steals and four blocks to go alongside nine points on offense.

“She’s very long, and she got in a perfect spot up on the diamond,” Meadows said. “We’ve been telling her to be more aggressive and play harder, and she really did that. She had a very solid game for us.”

The defense proved to be something the Bulldogs (2-9, 1-3) struggled to move through, especially in the second and third quarters. After a basket from senior Ali Thomas with six minutes left in the second quarter to make it 16-12, Batavia didn’t score again until Thomas hit a free throw with seven minutes left in the game.

“There were just a lot of things that didn’t go well in the middle there,” Bulldogs coach Kevin Jensen said. “But Ali Thomas was a difference-making player for us, and she was the most consistent piece for us the entire game, even when everyone knew we were going for her.”

Thomas finished the game with a career-high 19 points and seven rebounds for the Bulldogs. She also had every single point for Batavia up until a made free-throw from senior Payton Haslett with 6:30 left in the contest.

“As far as I’m concerned, she exceeded every single expectation I would have had for her in this game,” Jensen said. “She did an awesome job rebounding, playing defense, being aggressive on offense. She did everything she could have for us.”