When his players speak, Washington coach Ralph Biggs listens. It’s an important quality for a coach — especially one in his first year at the helm. It paid dividends, too. The girls were struggling to chip away at the early lead Northside built, but overcame it to win 50-36.

They went into halftime trailing by one, but turned up the aggression. They implemented a press that helped them jump out in transition. It resulted in the Pam Pack earning easier baskets at the rim since many of their shots weren’t dropping.

“It was a halftime decision,” Biggs said. “The coaches and girls told me they wanted to press, they wanted to get running and they wanted to get moving. So I listened. Sometimes you got to listen. I let them press and they did a great job with it. They really brought the energy up. It really helped us get in a flow because we weren’t scoring in the half court. The press really helped us.”

Northside was efficient with its mid-range shots early on. Senior duo Destiny Jones and Mariah Stanley both had hot hands. Meanwhile, Quortasia Clark and Abby Mooring got chances down low and Northside led 11-2 after the first eight minutes.

The Lady Panthers would have continued to add to their lead, but Washington was able to sink three shots from long range to stay close. Tasia Ebron got nothing but net on a deep 3 at the last second of the quarter to bring her side within one, 19-18, heading into the halftime break.

“We were down and hit a couple of timely three pointers. That kept the morale up,” Biggs said. “We went into halftime just down by one and that was big for our confidence.”

Pressing allowed Washington to hasten the tempo of the game, which threw Northside off its rhythm in the second half. The Lady Panthers were making their shots when they kept the pace slow, but it didn’t work out as well when things were moving quicker. They only made one less shot in the second half than they did in the first, but they came in a more sporadic fashion.

Washington never took its foot off the gas after taking the lead midway through the third period. The girls continued to press and play aggressively, which made it a challenge for the visitors to comeback.

“You want to keep the other team on their heels,” Biggs said. “It’s a big advantage for us when we keep pressing them and keep them on their heels rather than them have us on their heels. Sometimes when you press, you’re going to give up layups and give up scorers. The ratio you want is three stops out of every five. Then you’re doing well.

“We sped them up. They play slow to feed it down low … That’s their game, but I think our press sped them up. That helped us and let out athletes play.”

Both teams were looking to string together consecutive wins after starting 0-2. Washington did just that and hopes to keep rolling at Ayden-Grifton on Wednesday. Northside will look to bounce back at Ayden-Grifton on Tuesday.