HOLMES TOWNSHIP — It’s not often that a girls basketball team knocks down four two-point field goals in a game and wins, but that happened to Upper Sandusky Friday night.

The Rams used a strong defensive effort and went nine-for-19 from behind the arc and dropped Wynford, 47-31.

With the win, the Rams improved to 5-0 overall, 1-0 in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference, while Wynford fell to 1-2 overall, 0-1 in the conference.

Wynford coach Amy Taylor-Sheldon felt that this was a difficult league opener for her squad.

“I mean, (the Rams) were a team that was in the district finals last year and (Kaidance) Iles didn’t even play most of last year,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “I think everybody thought they were going to be a great team coming back and are really balanced.”

Upper Sandusky coach Jerry Vent thought that his defense was the difference in the game.

“We’re just really, really solid defensively,” Vent said. “Wynford is a good offensive team and they run a lot of actions. I told the girls before the game ‘Don’t worry about their sets so much, just understand how we guard certain actions.’ And I thought we focused on that, which took away a lot of what they were trying to do.

“Anytime you are prepared, that can kinda get in their head, maybe,” he added. “We were able to pressure them and take them out of a lot of what they wanted to do. Again, a credit to everybody, not just the girls that played, but everybody, they contributed to what we were able to do tonight.”

The most impressive fact about the Rams’ shooting night was that five Upper players knocked down at least one 3-point shot on the night. Sophomores Addy Newman and Grace Walton each had three, while Leah Kinley, Iles and Brooke Finscally each had one.

“We’re shooting the 3 right now about 36 percent, I think we were nine for 19 tonight and that’s a little higher than what we’ve been shooting,” Vent said. “When we can spread the floor and we have Velourea (Stowers) down low, and they were digging on her big time, we were able to get some quick passes out and move the ball around to the open shooter.

“When you can put four shooters around a post player, it’s tough,” he added.

Wynford shot the ball well in the first quarter, hitting five of eight shots to take a 12-10 lead after one.

But from that point, the Royals went nine-for-26 the rest of the game, as the Rams were able to build a 20-point lead, 37-17, on a Newman 3 midway through the third frame.

“I thought we did a lot of things well,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “They shot it well and we didn’t have as many opportunities. I was really happy with our effort, and they shot it well.”

Taylor-Sheldon said that her team was strong defensively.

“I thought we definitely had championship effort defensively,” Taylor-Sheldon said. “I mean, they shot 50 percent from 3 where I didn’t feel like most of them were uncontested. They made more 3s than twos, that’s hard to find on any team.”

The Royals got balanced scoring on the night. Reese McGuire scored all eight of her points in the second half. While Zoe Whitmeyer, Grace Stucky and Katie Wagner each added six.

“The couple of turnovers early kind of squished our confidence a little bit but we didn’t back down defensively at all, even though we were down 15 towards the end of the fourth quarter,” Taylor-Sheldon said.

“They wanted to hold the ball a little bit and I thought we did a great job of pressuring,” she added. “Just being assertive without being overly aggressive, where you would be trying to foul. We probably should have been aggressive earlier, but I don’t fault our defensive effort.”

Box score

Upper Sandusky       10       16       16         5 — 47

Wynford                       12          3         8         8 — 31

Upper Sandusky (5-0, 1-0 N10): Shots 13-29; 3-pt. shots 9-18 (Addy Newman 3, Grace Walton 3, Leah Kinley, Kaidance Iles, Brooke Finscally); Free throws 12-16; Rebounds 27; Turnovers 18. Scoring: Addy Newman 3 2 11, Grace Walton 4 2 13, Leah Kinley 1 0 3, Kaidance Iles 1 3 6, Brooke Finscally 3 0 7, Velourea Stowers 1 5 7.

Wynford (1-2, 0-1 N10): Shots 14-34; 3-pt. 1-13 (Alexis Stevely); Free throws 2-3; Rebounds 20; Turnovers 13. Scoring: Zoe Whitmeyer 2 2 6, Reese McGuire 4 0 8, Grace Stucky 3 0 6, Alexis Stevely 2 0 5, Katie Wagner 3 0 6.