Grant Union’s Taylor Palmateer is defended by Prairie City/Burnt River’s Brooke Teel during both teams’ season opener on Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023 at Prairie City High School.

PRAIRIE CITY — The Prairie City/Burnt River girls basketball team opened their game with the Grant Union Lady Prospectors on an 8-0 run and never looked back, dispatching their cross-county rivals 47-30 during their season opener on Thursday, Nov. 30, at Prairie City High School.

That initial 8-0 run would swell to a 17-2 lead with just under 6:00 left to play in the first half. The Lady Pros would hit a pair of quick threes to cut the Lady Panther lead to 17-8 and force a Burnt River/Prairie City timeout with 4:49 left in the first half.

The Lady Panthers would score the first four points following the timeout to increase their lead to 21-8 with just under 4:00 left in the half. The Lady Pro defense would then tighten up, leading to an 8-2 run to close out the first half and close within seven points at 23-16 headed into the intermission.

The Lady Panthers would regroup following halftime to carry a 33-23 advantage into the fourth quarter.

The Lady Panthers would start the fourth on a 10-2 run to extend their lead to 18 with just under 5:00 left in the game. There would be no rally for the Lady Pros as the Lady Panthers added another point to their advantage late in the fourth quarter to take a daunting 47-28 lead with 2:00 left in the game.

The Lady Panthers wouldn’t score again in the final two minutes of the contest but the Lady Pros didn’t do much better, managing just two points over the final two minutes of the game to fall 47-30.

Brooke Teel chipped in a game-high 17 points for the Lady Panthers, who had two other players finish with 10 points or more. The Lady Pros were led offensively by Taylor Palmateer and Morgan Walker, who finished with 10 points each.

Lady Panther head coach Bo Workman said he was pleased with his team’s performance in their season opener.

“I thought for our first game of the year we did pretty good,” he said. “Obviously, they do better when we’re up-tempo on defense. … I liked everybody’s defensive effort tonight.”

Workman said the team got away from what they normally do defensively, which allowed the Lady Pros to climb back into the game. Following halftime, the team returned to defensive form, which allowed them to ultimately put the game out of reach.

“When we started out with our press, things were going good,” he said. “Then we took it back and laid back off of it, and they kind of crawled back into it. Then we came out after halftime back into press. … Our defense and our tempo — keeping it up-tempo forced them to make mistakes.”

The two teams are rivals, but it isn’t anything malicious and the healthy hatred that accompanies most rivalries is largely absent here. Workman said that helps as members of both teams transition to co-op sports later on in the school year.

“It’s real competitive — they know each other, they show up to play and they play hard,” he said. “They compete against each other and still get along and go on to the next sport, which is softball after this, and get along and be successful. I like it.”

Grant Union head coach Jason Miller said he was pleased with his team’s effort and performance in the season opener.

“Once we got rid of the panic, they played pretty well,” he said. “I was happy with the decisions they made and the shots they made. Overall, I’m fairly pleased with it — a lot of little things to work on, but we’ll get there.”

The Lady Panthers will be in action next on Friday, Dec. 1, and Saturday, Dec. 2, at the Cove tournament. Start times are 3 p.m. on Friday and 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The Lady Pros will tip off against Griswold in Helix on Saturday, Dec. 2, in their second game of the season. Start time for that game is 3:30 p.m.