JACKSON TWP - Seneca Valley girls basketball coach Todd Schoeffel said his team played great defense in the first half against North Hills Monday.

The scoreboard agreed.

The Raiders held the Indians to no points in the first quarter and just five by the end of the first half on their way to a 43-28 Section 3-AAAA win.

North Hills (3-6, 0-3) had trouble just getting shots off, totaling 11 attempts from the field in the first 16 minutes while committing 12 turnovers.

"I thought our defense did a great job in the first half of stepping in the gaps," said Schoeffel. "That's how we got a lot of the turnovers."

"(Seneca Valley) likes to switch things up on defense," said North Hills coach George Vlassich. "We simply did not have time to prepare for it and it caused us a lot of problems."

Seneca Valley's Ashley Turici also caused problems for the Indians, scoring a game-high 21 points.

The junior forward's previous high this season was 12 points.

"We wanted to get the ball down in the post," said Schoeffel. "Whether it was to (Turici) or (Amanda Johnson) or (Chelsey Pavlick), we wanted to take advantage of our height.

"We did a decent job, but we could've done better," he added. "We could have ended up with those three girls all in double figures."

Kelsey Spencer added eight points for Seneca Valley.

After the Raiders grabbed a 10-0 lead at the end of the first period, North Hills' Katie Sieber finally got the Indians on the board with a field goal 27 seconds into the second frame.

But errors and frustration continued to plague North Hills as it trailed 18-5 at halftime.

Sieber, who ended the night as the Indians' high scorer with 12 points, scored 10 of them in the second half to make the score respectable.

"When you go out and get outscored 10-0 in a quarter like we did in the first, you're really digging yourself a hole," said Vlassich. "We tried making some offensive adjustments at halftime and did score 23 points in the second half."

The victory gives the Raiders an unblemished 3-0 record in the section. They are 5-4 overall.

"I told the girls that there's a big difference between being 3-0 and 2-1 in the section," said Schoeffel. "It means we are at least staying even with everybody in the section."

NORTH HILLS 28

Kerrie Siebert 0 1-2 1, Staci Boretzky 2 0-0 4, Katie Sieber 5 1-3 12, Kristin Tedesco 2 0-0 4, Bethany Alabeck 3 0-0 7, Katie Manterovic 0 0-0 0, Jordan Zangaro 0 0-0 0. Totals: 12 2-5 28.

SENECA VALLEY 43

Kelsey Spencer 3 1-2 8, Chelsey Pavlick 1 0-0 2, Laura Wray 0 1-2 1, Ryan Ingrassia 1 0-0 3, Tina Mangola 1 1-2 4, Amanda Johnson 1 2-2 4, Ashley Turici 9 3-4 21, Laura Ness 0 0-0 0, Val Johnson 0 0-0 0, Michelle Ulizio 0 0-0 0. Totals: 16 8-12 43.

3-point goals: Sieber, Alabeck; Spencer, Ingrassia, Mangola.

JV: North Hills 45-33 (SV-Courtney Grootegoed 21; NH-Erica Slagel 14).

Thursday: Seneca Valley @ North Allegheny