By KALA BOLTON / Staff Writer

Whether on the court or in the bleachers, the energy the visiting Thompson Warriors brought as they took down the Chelsea High School girls’ basketball team Nov. 18 was palpable, and that’s just the way Thompson head coach Cara Crosslin likes it.

“So far, I like the energy we’ve been bringing,” Crosslin said. “Each and every game, we’ve had energy, so that’s been encouraging. Just the attitude right now of wanting to win, wanting to play, loving the game — sometimes it’s hard to keep the girls motivated, but right now they’re doing a good job of that.”

The Warriors (5-2) took a 63-32 win in Chelsea’s first home game of the season as the Hornets’ first loss came the night before at Pelham.

“In all honesty, any kind of progress we made last night, we kind of undid tonight,” Chelsea head coach Wayne Trucks said of his team, who gave up 43 turnovers on the night. “Thompson is a great team. They do a great job of rotating the ball. We just did not come out and play well, even in the first quarter.”

The Warriors took off on a 12-point scoring run to snag a 16-4 lead going into a second quarter that was spent mostly on the free throw line for both squads.

Thompson maintained a dominant 33-16 lead going into halftime, closing out the third quarter after three back-to-back steals by Thompson resulted in two quick layups and a free throw from Warriors senior guard Rachel Lawley.

Lawley started the second half strong with steal and a layup, followed by a a 3-pointer to extend the Thompson lead to 42-18. Minutes later, following two Chelsea turnovers, Thompson went on a quick 11-point spree following a layup by freshman guard Janese Richardson, a 3-pointer from sophomore forward Kiarra Petway and two 3-point shots from sophomore Abby Kreuser.

“We’ve been working really hard on our defense,” Crosslin said. “I kind of changed the defense up back and forth. We realized man was working for us tonight, so we decided to just stick with man instead of going back and forth with zone, so I think that’s what part of the difference.”

Following a third quarter where the Warriors outscored the Hornets 24-2, Thompson ran the clock in the fourth quarter to seal a 63-32 victory.

Lawley led the team with 14 points while Richardson added 10, senior KaDeisha Stowes had nine, Kreuser totaled six and sophomore Sophie Cingoranelli added five for the Warriors.

“We got sloppy at the beginning, but I think we improved at the end,” Petway said.”I feel like we could have played better than we did, but was a big win. A win’s a win.”

Junior Amanda Mock led the Hornets with 10 points on the night, while seniors Perri Lambert and Ashleigh Niven each added five points.

“The great thing is we’ve got another game tomorrow,” Trucks said. “We play Pell City tomorrow, and playing three in three days is tough, but we kept fighting all the way till the end. We just got outplayed in pretty much every facet of the game.”