Nicole Warbinski ran track for two years, but she hung up her spikes to focus on basketball.

That running background still pays off.

“It’s helped me because of my conditioning,” said Oswego East’s senior forward. “I love to run down the floor and hustle and get the ball. I get a lot of layups off of that.”

Warbinski and the Wolves looked like a bunch of former runners on Thursday and ran Yorkville out of the gym in startling fashion.

Visiting Oswego East put up a 50-point first half and played the entire fourth quarter with a running clock in a 70-31 win in the Southwest Prairie Conference.

It was nothing like the highly competitive affairs the two conference rivals have been a part of the last two seasons.

“This is kind of what I was expecting from them but no, I didn’t expect this kind of score because Yorkville is always a tough team to play, especially on their home court,” Oswego East coach Abe Carretto said. “But the way the girls played, I do expect them to play like that.”

Aubrey Lamberti scored 19 of her 23 points in the first half and also grabbed 10 rebounds. Warbinski scored 14 of her 17 in the first half and Desiree Merritt added 13 points for Oswego East (5-4, 2-1), which led 26-10 after a quarter and 50-21 at the half.

Claire Donelson scored eight points for Yorkville (6-3, 3-2).

Warbinski scored her first three baskets off left-handed drives. And then she knocked down two 3-pointers, making her first five shots.

“I got those two threes and it really helped my confidence and my adrenaline and my energy was right up there,” Warbinski said. “That was definitely my best game, driving to the basket and shooting threes with confidence.”

“Nicole played really well. I mean she was really good at that, really attacking,” Carretto said. “That was one of the first games I’ve seen that. She’s attacked like that but not consistently. It was nice to see.”

Lamberti, just as efficient, made all four of her field goals in an 11-point first quarter.

How good was it going?

When the senior forward lined up a 3-point attempt from the left wing in the second quarter, it banked in for a 41-18 lead.

“The whole team came out strong right off the bat offensively and defensively and we all played great,” Lamberti said. “One of the main things we’ve tried to work on is rebounding and boxing out. I feel like everybody did that today as a team which allowed for easier rebounds. We work on transition all the time and it translated well.”

Indeed, Lamberti cleaned up on the defensive glass, which fueled a transition game that the Wolves thrive on.

“Aubrey starts it because it seems like every time they missed she was getting the ball and we were going the other way,” Carretto said.

Oswego East shot 61% in the first quarter, with an 18-0 run bridging the last half of the quarter and into the second. Yorkville, meanwhile, was just 1-for-11 in the first quarter.

“The weird part was I felt we handled their pressure well; we’ve had trouble with that at times,” Yorkville coach Kim Wensits said. “It just felt like we could not make a bucket to save our life and they couldn’t miss a bucket, and part of that is we gave them too much easy stuff in transition and second chance.

“I was not expecting that, but I knew they were good. Their record was deceiving.”

Indeed, the Wolves are 4-1 since the season’s first week, the lone loss by six to Bolingbrook last week.

“I feel like we’ve been playing really good,” Warbinski said. “Got to keep winning.”

Both Oswego East and Yorkville will be at the Fox River Classic 16-team tournament next week hosted by Batavia and Geneva that starts Monday.

“To me we just have to continue to focus on the mental side,” Wensits said. “I felt like we had too many slip-ups tonight. We have to continue to focus on the mental piece, continue to play together. When we are together we have eight or nine people in the scoring column, and not just two or three points. We didn’t do that tonight. They were incredibly physical and we didn’t respond to that physicality.”