“I thought we played really, really hard and I couldn’t fault the effort we were giving the whole game, but we made a lot of mistakes,” Maplewood coach Mark Yoder said. “We had a lot of high-percentage shots that we missed. We had some turnovers we shouldn’t have. But like I told them in the locker room, ‘If you’re making mistakes playing as hard as you can, I can live with it.’

“So overall I thought we did a nice job defensively, created a lot of turnovers against them. I was pretty happy with the effort.”

The first quarter was a whole different ball game from the end result for both teams. Mathews (2-3, 0-3 Northeastern Athletic Conference) had the edge on both sides of the ball, holding the Rockets to only six points.

Once the second quarter started, the roles reversed, and it stayed that way the rest of the game. The Mustangs were held to five points in the second quarter and six in the fourth. Maplewood (6-1, 2-1 NAC) scored in double figures in each of the last three quarters, putting up 17, 12 and 11 respectively.

Special to the Tribune Chronicle | Dianna Oatridge (from L to R) Mathews' Carlie Pratt (5) grabs a rebound in front of Maplewood's Heidi Stiffler (30) during their game in Mecca on Thursday.

According to Yoder, that advantage came from figuring out how the other team was playing and adapting to what they did.

“Once you play defense for a while and figure out what they’re doing, it’s a little easier to take away what they’re used to doing,” Yoder said. “That’ll create a few more turnovers. On the offensive end, you figure out the type of defense they’re playing. We knew they were a man-to-man defensive team, but they were really slacking off our backside people. So, we had to run plays to take advantage of the slack defense rather than the high-pressure defense.”

Maplewood was led in scoring by freshman Marissa Ventura with 17 points and senior Heidi Stiffler with 12 points.

Carlie Pratt led the Mustangs with 10 points.

The Mustangs look to recover at home against Bristol on Monday, while the Rockets head to Ashtabula on Saturday to take on the St. John.

“We played them in a tournament game in their place last year,” Yoder said. “We won a close one, but they have some girls that can really shoot the ball. You leave them open and they’re hitting 3-pointers left and right on you. It’s going to be a challenge going to their place. We’re going to have to show up, close on their outside shooters and make it hard for them to score.”