JAY— Any time Gardiner got a hold of a rebound underneath — and that was often — the Tigers went right back up with the ball for a basket.

No dribbling, no looking to pass the ball to another player. Gardiner just put the ball in the net or drew a foul for a three-point play on most of its rebounds. The team’s defense in the zone was as impressive as its strong rebounding.

The Tigers (4-2) outrebounded Spruce Mountain (2-5) at both ends of the court and used some polished passing before Gardiner dropped the gavel on the Phoenix with a 59-44 victory in a girls’ basketball game Thursday night.

“They are one of the top teams in Class A,” Spruce Mountain coach Zachary Keene said. “You expect them to make some of those plays, but you expect a little resistance, too.

“The situation we were put in, I was happy with our effort, not practicing the last few days because of policies. That’s one of the top teams in Class A, so to come out with that effort and battle them like that … They don’t quit. They don’t stop.

“They are big. They are strong. They are physical. They have been together. This is a veteran group. They know how to play. They have been together their whole careers.”

Despite the Phoenix’s best intentions and routine scrappy play, Gardiner outdistanced itself in the second half.

At halftime, the Tigers started to shake off the pesky Spruce Mountain team, building a 30-25 lead. After the third quarter, Gardiner was quite comfortable with a 47-38 lead.

“I loved the way we rebounded,” Gardiner coach Mike Gray said. “Earlier in the year, I felt like we weren’t rebounding well.

“We’ve had two weeks since we played a real game. But I loved the way we rebounded, on both ends, really. I thought we did a good job on the defensive end of rebounding and I thought we did a good job offensive rebounding as well.

Despite losing their captain and senior forward Mary Toman (5-foot-10) to knee injury when she collided with Spruce’s Alex Bessey early in the game, the Tigers rallied and didn’t miss a beat.

“She has been our leading scorer,” Gray said. “Hopefully, it is minor. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be as bad as we thought. I was worried when you lose a kid like that. When you lose one of your senior captains, the whole team could just sink.

“They did a really good job stepping up. If anything, they picked up the energy level, and I thought Aimee Adams, No. 21, who went in for her, just did a phenomenal job at both ends in her spot.”

Junior guard Leslie Stevens scored the team-high 13 points and senior guard Lauren Chadwick and Adams, a senior forward, each scored 12 points.

Bessey was her usual self-sacrificing self, throwing herself into the fray whenever she drove to the basket for impressive game-high 30 points. Her first-quarter 3-pointer tied the game at 10-10. She made 13 of her 24 free-throws and played tough on defense, as well.