The aggressive play the North Central Panthers brought Wednesday night against the Highland Scots proved to be too much to handle for the home team. North Central beat Highland 63-36, but not before the Scots put up a big fight.

“We didn’t know what to expect other than that they were going to come out with aggressive play,” Highland coach Chad Cook said. “It was definitely a tough game dealing with their aggressive and physical defense.”

North Central junior Katrina Hayden proved to be a force, scoring 20 of the Panthers’ points. Hayden was able to hit some outside shots, but the Scots were unable to force the rest of the Panthers to attempt the same.

“One of our weaknesses was that we didn’t make them take those shots,” Scots junior Krosley Ogden said. “In the beginning, we kept letting them get layups and rebounds instead of making them take the outside shot and use that to our advantage since they’re not a shooting team.”

The Scots opened the game with a strong offensive burst. Highland junior Jessica Lark had a strong first half with big defensive plays and fast, intense offensive bursts. She was the leading scorer for Highland with 17 points.

“I think we played well but we need to execute better on offense and defense, box out and start getting every rebound,” Lark said. “Playing in this game will help us do all of those things better.”

North Central took the lead in the last minute of the first period and never lost it. With their aggressive play, the Panthers were able to widen the margin and eventually capture the victory.

Although the score shows a big win for the Panthers, Cook says the Scots never gave up and that’s something that can’t be taught.

“The girls battled hard, never quit and put in a lot of effort. Those are all good things. You can’t really make yourself have more heart,” Cook said. “They need to know where to go and how to get there faster. We can always get better and work on those things, that’s easy. Making someone’s heart have more will, that’s a hard thing to do. But they don’t need to do that.”