JACKSON TWP — The smile on Rob Lombardo's face was hard to miss.

Seneca Valley's girls basketball coach had just watched his team rout Fox Chapel 68-34 at the Seneca Valley Tip-Off Tournament Friday night.

A 43-18 edge in the second half, including a 15-of-23 (65 percent) effort from the field in that span, sparked the lopsided victory.

The 68 points are the most SV has managed in a game since the Raiders scored as many in a January 2012 loss to New Castle.

“It was nice for our girls to be on the winning side of a game like this,” said Lombardo. “We've been on the other side of it enough. We did a lot of really good things tonight. For an opening game, we have nothing to complain about.”

The Raiders led the Foxes 25-16 at halftime, then pushed their game into another gear at the start of the third quarter.

They went on a 13-4 run in the first five minutes of the period.

Included were 3-pointers from Shaley Bream and Erin Danik and back-to-back 2-point buckets from sophomore guard Michaela Lamont.

Meanwhile, the Foxes' offense sputtered, committing 12 turnovers in the second half. Junior guard Kayla Slovenec led Fox Chapel with 17 points, half of her team's total for the game.

“We have several players out with injury,” said Foxes' coach Jennifer O'Shea. “We've had to rearrange some things and are trying to get used to each other. That second half, we stopped defending people, stopped doing the things that we work on in practice every day.”

After a 16-point first quarter, Seneca hit a lull in the second, not scoring a point until Lamont's basket with 3:25 left before halftime.

The team rebounded, however, and still held a healthy nine-point lead at the break.

“We do have to get better at playing fast, yet still being able to execute in our half-court set,” said Lombardo. “We got careless with the ball there for a while.”

Seneca received 34 bench points, including 14 from Lamont, who tied Danik for the team lead.

Lombardo was pleased with the balanced scoring between his starters and reserves.

“There's more of an emphasis on things like hand-checks this year,” he said. “There will be a lot more fouls called during games and the team that wins will often be the deeper team. We have a nice bench we can turn to.”

FOX CHAPEL 34

Sarah Supsura 1 0-0 2, Gabby Badway 1 2-3 4, Kayla Slovenec 7 1-3 17, Vanessa Blazer 1 1-2 3, Madison Chajson 0 2-2 2, Katie Livingston 3 0-1 6, Kerstin Nestel 0 0-0 0, Anna Huwar 0 0-0 0, Claudia Guerrier 0 0-0 0. Totals: 13 6-11 34.

SENECA VALLEY 68

Michaela Lamont 7 0-2 14, Shaley Bream 2 0-0 5, Christina Dunning 2 1-1 5, Carolyn Palaski 2 0-0 4, Meghan Hess 2 3-4 7, Maggie Maloney 3 0-0 8, Sarah Jones 1 1-2 3, Lexus Lambert 1 3-6 5, Melissa Carter 1 1-2 3, Erin Danik 3 6-6 14, Brooke Lyczek 0 0-0 0, Toni Augustine 0 0-0 0. Totals: 24 15-23 68.

Fox Chapel 11 5 9 9 — 34

Seneca Valley16 9 23 20 — 68

3-point goals: Fox Chapel 2 (Slovenec 2); Seneca Valley 5 (Maloney 2, Danik 2, Bream).

Saturday: Hampton vs. Fox Chapel (consolation); Burrell vs. Seneca Valley (championship)