Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Warren JFK's Didi Ryan (1) drives to the basket with Maplewood's Claire Urchek defending during a Friday afternoon game in Warren.

WARREN — Walking into the gym Friday afternoon losers of two out of their last three contests, Warren John F. Kennedy showed zero signs of wavering. Despite recent losses against much larger programs, a difficult schedule has helped the Division VII Eagles improve.

Their latest triumph came Friday afternoon at home during a 65-47 victory over previously undefeated Maplewood.

Kennedy coach Marc Morgan was pleased with the way his team attacked the Rockets offense.

“That was the game plan going in, making them play at our pace and try to force that and see if they could sustain that for the entire game,” Morgan said. “When you get that lead (early on) though, it kind of plays with your mind. Like how much do we do this? Because you’re only going to weather the storm for so long. They’re going to make some runs, because Maplewood is a good basketball team, they’re smart, so you have to figure how long you’re going to keep playing this, do we switch it? When do we do that? That’s kind of the game you play after that first quarter.”

The Eagles (10-2) scored 32 first quarter points, including a 17-point first quarter by sophomore Didi Ryan, who scored a game-high 27. That mark was one point shy of her career-high 28 point outing against Lutheran East earlier this season.

Plenty of that early scoring came from Kennedy’s aggressive press that induced a slew of early Maplewood (8-1) turnovers.

“We usually play a full-court press in twelve, so when we do that, we can really stretch that out and get the ball down the court fast, so that’s kind of what we focused on. My teammates happened to find me and that’s how I got the open shots,” Ryan said. “We knew (our two losses) were tough teams, so it wasn’t so much about the basketball part, but learning mentally how to play in a tough environment against girls who play high-level basketball.

“I love these girls more than anything, I wouldn’t want to play with anyone else. It’s so fun. We hype each other up, we make buckets, play basketball and we’re just a big family.”

Maplewood made its share of runs, including a quick 7-0 run toward the end of the second quarter, with junior Lauran Krieg and Aliah Brumit netting shots, but Kennedy kept replying.

Junior guard Gianna Pompelia, who nailed a couple of 3-pointers during the contest to help create some spacing for the host Eagles, added a 19 point outing into the mix as well.

“Our game plan was to come in and send a message to the team and other Division VIIs that we wanted to prove that we’re more of a fast-paced team, and we can score more in the 70s and 60s,” Pompelia said. “It builds up our momentum, having open threes. We’d rather have open looks than having people in our faces.

“I feel like we work the ball around more (compared to last year). We just don’t have one shooter, we have multiple, and everyone could take shots now.”

Morgan added, “When you’re playing a Lutheran East and a Perry – teams we would never see in the tournament – you’re trying to build that mindset that we can play with these big dogs, so that when we play teams that are in our division, it’s like a presence. We have a different presence about us. You’re not going to body us, you’re not going to out physical us, so when you play that type of schedule, that’s what I was going for this year.”

Maplewood had a duo of double-figure scorers as well. Lauran Kreig earned the team-high honors with 18 points, and Aliah Brumit following suit with 15.

Knowing that perfection was going to be a difficult task to achieve, Maplewood coach Stephanie Pykare saw positives in the loss.

“They disputed the flow of our offense, they attacked us, we expected it. I thought we were better prepared than what we were, but it’s why you have to play the game. When it’s all said and done, teams have tendencies and predictability. We knew they were going to try and completely disrupt what we liked to do, and did an excellent job,” Pykare said. “We knew we weren’t going to be perfect all season, and you can learn a lot from a loss. So, I’m OK with that loss. I think it can teach us so much heading into the second half of the season.

“Now, we’ve got to watch it, pick and choose what to take from it, leave behind the things we can’t control, but there’s a lot of things we can control and get better at and that’ll help us later on in the season.”