Starting their week off with a trip to Summerville, the Escalon varsity Lady Cougars basketball team came home with a win in hand.

They took on the Bears on Dec. 4, winning by a 48-42 final.

“It felt good to beat them, they had beaten us the week before but this time we were able to rebound much better,” noted head coach Joseph Dalpogetti. “We also had pretty balanced scoring.”

Alexa Gomez had nine points in the win, followed by Brooke Campbell with six, Katie Karp and Ryilee McNulty with five points apiece.

Thursday through Saturday, the Escalon girls headed to the Linden Tournament and opened up against Galt on Dec. 6, defeating them 41-33.

“Dulce Jimenez had 11 points, Alexa Gomez had 10 and Hannah Boyd had eight points,” Dalpogetti said. “Brooke Campbell had 11 rebounds, Boyd had nine.”

A key in the game was the half-court trap employed by the Lady Cougars.

“They struggled to get the ball past half court,” the coach said of Galt, with Escalon able to force 37 turnovers. “We maintained a five- to 10-point lead the whole second half.”

Friday, it was another relatively low-scoring game, this time Escalon on the wrong side of a 44-31 final, losing to Bret Harte.

“Gomez had nine points, no one else had more than five,” Dalpogetti explained. “They’re much larger than us, we played decent. We actually took a one-point lead in the third quarter but just ran out of gas.”

On Saturday, the varsity girls wrapped up the tournament by taking on Tokay in the third place game.

“We got a 48-31 win, we built up a nice cushion in the first half and never fell below a 12-point lead in the second half,” Dalpogetti said.

McNulty went off for 15 points on the night, including four 3-point baskets, to lead the team in scoring.

Dalpogetti said there has been some movement of players between the JV and varsity squads, so they ended up with just seven players suited up for the varsity game against Tokay.

“There will be a lot of movement over the next couple of weeks,” the coach said, as the team looks to get its line up set before Trans-Valley League play begins.

The JV girls took a loss on the road at Summerville, 46-27, on Dec. 4 with the host team jumping out to an 11-0 edge in the first quarter. Escalon had to play from behind throughout the contest, but Summerville maintained the lead all the way through. The home team outscored Escalon 12-11 in the second quarter, 14-9 in the third and 9-7 in the fourth to take the win.

The teams are scheduled to travel to Stagg for games on Thursday game, Dec. 13.