Taylor Childress (1), Emma Ruhlman (15) and the Warren girls closed the regular season at 19-3 with a 53-41 win at St. Marys on Friday.

ST. MARYS, Pa. – A slow start proved to be no problem to overcome for the Warren Lady Dragons in their regular season finale against St. Marys.

Margo Loutzenhiser scored a game-high 25 points and Warren (19-3) got a strong effort from its bench in a 53-41 win.

“We started off a little slow,” said Warren coach Lisa LaVan. “It was just a little bit of cat and mouse, trying to figure out what each other was going to do. We were just a little tentative.”

That didn’t last.

Warren trailed 25-23 at halftime, but came out strong in the third quarter to re-take the lead.

And they didn’t relinquish it.

Instead, it just kept growing.

“The second half we cracked down on defense, holding them to one shot,” LaVan said. “We took a lead and really stretched it out. We did a nice job getting to the hole.”

She also noted the strong play of Halee Mineweaser, Katie Madigan and Teagan Paris.

“Halee and Katie came in and played a lot of minutes tonight, which is great,” she said. “Teagan did a nice job off the bench as well.”

Loutzenhiser also had seven rebounds and four steals, while Riley Childress had 12 points and Emma Ruhlman 11 points and four steals.

“Margo did a nice job leading, as usual,” LaVan said.

Abby Adamski led a young and talented St. Marys (15-6) team with eight points.

Warren is off until next Saturday, when they play Meadville at a site and time to be determined in the District 10 Class 5A quarterfinals.

“This was a great way to end the regular season,” LaVan said. “It was a playoff atmosphere and they had a nice crowd.”

“It was a playoff atmosphere. They had a nice crowd.”

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WARREN (53)

T. Childress 0-0-0-0, Mineweaser 0-0-0-0, Hultberg 0-1-2-1, Madigan 1-0-0-2, R. Childress 4-2-2-12, Ruhlman 3-5-5-11, Loutzenhiser 9-7-9-25, Matson 0-0-0-0, Paris 1-0-0-2

ST. MARYS (41)

Muccio 1-2-2-4, Adamski 4-0-0-8, Eckert 0-3-4-3, Johnson 2-0-0-6, Shaw 2-0-0-5, Quesenberry 1-5-6-7, Schlimm 1-1-2-4, Hayes 0-4-4-4

By Quarters

Warren 5 18 12 18 – 53

St. Marys 9 16 8 8 – 41

Three-point FGs: Warren (2) – R. Childress 2; St. Marys (4) – Johnson 2, Shaw, Schlimm