George Rogers Clark’s girls basketball team took the floor Saturday evening for the first time after their first loss of the season.

The Lady Cardinals fell to one of the state’s top teams, Simon Kenton, by 23 points last Monday.

Head coach Robbie Graham made sure his team would not fall into the same hole against Scott High.

The Cardinals came out of the gate hot, scoring 10 of the game’s first 12 points. A timeout from the Lady Eagles cut into GRC’s lead, but the Cardinals would go on a run of their own to lead by 13 points at the end of the first quarter.

By halftime, GRC scored 47 points, one off of Scott’s total for the entirety of the game. The Lady Cardinals would go on to win the game 76-48, bringing them to 3-1 on the season. The win puts them at 1-0 in region play for the year and kept them from their fourth back-to-back loss in the past three seasons.

“I think we bounced back really well. We had a good start. Against Simon Kenton, we didn’t have a great start, we were very sluggish and dug ourselves into a tremendous hole and had to claw and fight back. Against that team, it’s hard to come back. When you’re down 20 at the half, it’s hard to come back against a team that’s so well-coached and has good players,” Graham said. “We wanted to start fast today. Our defense set the tone. We got some early turnovers which led to some easy baskets, which we wanted to do. I think we rebounded the ball really, really well, which we’ve been working on a lot. There are still some things that we need to clean up, which is going to be a work in progress. But that makes it fun. We learned a lot from our film against Simon Kenton, and we did some really good things tonight so I was really pleased.”

The Lady Cards’ defense was a lot better and Kennedy Igo was at the forefront, jumping passing lanes and coaching her teammates on the floor to make sure they were in the right position.

“[Igo]’s definitely our leader. She’s very vocal, and she’s such a competitor. She just wants to win every possession, not just every game but every possession. She sees a lot of things on the floor, she’s got a very high IQ for the game of basketball,” Graham said. “A lot of times she’ll come up to me and say, ‘Hey coach, let’s look at this,’ or, ‘How about we run this?’ She’s really a student of the game.”

Another key player for the Lady Cardinals’ defense is rim-protector Brianna Byars. Byars, a freshman, was also second on the team in scoring against the Lady Eagles, finishing with 18 points. Tyra Flowers was the leader at 25.

“Bri’s a multi-talented player, she can do it all. She’s very versatile, long and athletic,” Graham said. “We tell her she’s got the ability to go out and make plays, and she just goes out and does it.”

The Lady Cardinals will have a week to prepare for their holiday tournament, the Queen of the Commonwealth. The tournament begins with a matchup against Assumption Friday at 9 p.m. The tournament will be played at Bullitt East and will run through Dec. 23.