SYRACUSE – Wawasee’s defensive tempo gave Indianapolis Brebeuf Jesuit fits in a 40-20 girls basketball victory Saturday morning at the Wawasee Shootout.

Stingy defense by the Lady Warriors afforded the Lady Braves just a pair of three-point makes in the second and third quarters combined while Wawasee jumped out to a 32-14 lead after three played.

Wawasee forced Brebeuf into 15 turnovers and had eight steals in the contest, holding the visitors to just three second-chance points while creating 11 second-chance points of its own.

Kylee Rostochak paced Wawasee’s offense with 16 points, and had a hand in three buzzer-beaters. With time winding down in the first quarter, Rostochak drove the lane, pulling three Brebeuf defenders over to open up sister Kabrea Rostochak under the hoop for a layup.

Kylee would hit a three with four second left in the first half on a set play that put Wawasee up 19-11 heading into the lockerroom, and hit a shot with two seconds left in the third.

Kathryn Kraft led Brebeuf with 11 points, but was the only one who found the net in those two sparse quarters as the Lady Braves shot just 17 percent (5-30) from the floor in the game. Kraft hit three of nine three-point attempts.

“Really our only issue today was leaving (Kraft) open for those threes,” stated Wawasee head coach Kem Zolman. “When we left her open, she hit three threes. I don’t know if she has hit three of them in the past three games. But that was probably our biggest breakdown, which is a win for us. Normally, when he have a small lead and teams start hitting threes, we’re in trouble. But we recovered nicely.”

Aubrey Schmeltz added six points and four rebounds for Wawasee while teammates Hannah Haines and Aubrey Kuhn, both point guards, combined to pull down 11 rebounds, four offensive. Hannah-Marie Lamle added four rebounds and a steal in a fine overall defensive performance.

“We’re still a team that just doesn’t quite know who we are quite yet,” Zolman said. “Some things happened right today that gave them some confidence which hasn’t worked in other games. So they went after it. They saw it work, then it gave them some confidence. In other games, when things don’t work, they play like it. Today we were on the positive side of our confidence.”

The win over Brebeuf was the first by Wawasee in the series since the 2010-11 Shootout, which was also the last time Wawasee won a game in the Shootout series. Wawasee is 7-12 in the Shootout since its inception in 2005 including the win Saturday. Wawasee has beaten Norwell, the Saturday evening opponent, just twice since the series began.

Norwell used a solid second quarter, outscoring Plymouth 16-10, to push out to a 10-point halftime lead en route to a 63-49 victory in game one of the Shootout.

Norwell’s Hanna Smith led the club with 14 points while Stephanie Conrad, Kaycee Strunk and Quinn Shelton all had 11 points.

Plymouth only had four players make the scoring column, led by Hunter Stevens’ game-high 20 points. Alli Andrews had 12 points, Kaydon Fosler 11 points and Nicole Horvath six points.

Plymouth (8-4) and Brebeuf (1-10) will meet at 6 p.m. tonight in the evening session of the Wawasee Shootout, with Norwell (8-3) and Wawasee (4-8) to follow.