BROWNSTOWN — It seemed like every time the Brownstown Central girls basketball team needed points, someone was ready to step up and put the ball in the basket.

Six Braves figured in the scoring column in the 53-41 win over Paoli on Saturday night.

“We had six girls in the scoring column, spread out between 14, 11, 9, 8, 7, 4, which is what we’ve got to have,” Braves coach Brandon Allman said. “If we don’t have one or two girls that are going to take over, we’re going to have scoring by committee.”

Harley Toppe hit twice from long range in the first four minutes of the game, and Mallory Klosterman added two more 3-pointers in the last half of the opening period to give the Braves a 12-8 lead at the end of the first period.

Jericho Hopper scored all of Paoli’s points in the first period and topped all players on the night with 19 points.

The Braves took control of the game by scoring the first nine points of the second quarter and held a 31-19 lead at the break.

Addison Darlage had three layups in the period, Sophie Wischmeier scored four points inside, Hailey Hobson had three points and Toppe and Klosterman both added 3s.

Paoli scored the first six points of the third period, and a 3-pointer by Carley Higgins cut the difference to 31-25. The Braves didn’t score until Darlage made a 3-pointer at the 3:50 mark. Hobson scored five, including a 3-pointer, as the Braves took a 46-30 lead into the fourth period.

Allman said the Braves had three turnovers and took shots off of one pass instead of moving the ball around during the first four minutes of the third period.

“We’ve got to understand that we’ve got to get the ball reversed, and when we were able to do that, we got layups,” he said.

At the start of the fourth period, it took the Braves almost three minutes to score before Jada Miller drove for a layup with 4:17 on the clock.

Darlage topped the Braves with 14 points, Klosterman scored 11, Toppe nine, Hobson eight and Wischmeier seven. The Braves outrebounded the Rams 26-15 with Wischmeier and Klosterman each getting six.

“We had too many (26) fouls,” Allman said. “With the rule changes, I thought it would be beneficial for teams to be aggressive. Now, you get eight fouls before they shoot free throws. You get four (each quarter).

“But we were able to force them into 24 turnovers, and quite a few of those, especially later on, we turned those into some points, which was nice,” he said. “One of the things we talked about before the game was our defense had to lead our offense, and we were able to do that.”

Allman began substituting early and went nine deep in the first quarter.

He said he is still looking for the right combinations on the floor.

“I keep telling the girls it is going to be a work in progress,” he said. “The more we get into practice, we’re going to find the right combinations that are going to work. I expect to play eight or nine girls right now. That allows us to stay fresh and be able to keep applying pressure. We’ve got to continue to work on ourselves, just learn to play together. I didn’t think we got into a flow.”

The Braves had 21 turnovers.

Higgins added 15 points for the 1-2 Rams.

The Braves will play at Trinity Lutheran on Tuesday night with the JV game starting at 6 p.m.

High School Basketball

Brownstown;12;19;15;7;—;53

Paoli;8;11;11;11;—;41

Brownstown Central (1-0): Harley Toppe 3 0-0 9, Mallory Klosterman 4 0-0 11, Sophie Wischmeier 2 3-4 7, Hailey Hobson 3 1-2 8, Addison Darlage 6 1-2 14, Jada Miller 1 2-2 4, Jenna Klosterman 0 0-0 0, Kelsey Schneider 0 0-0 0, Kinzee Dean 0 0-0 0, totals 19 7-14 53

Paoli (1-2): Avery Crews 0 1-2 1, Lilly Hall 1 1-2 3, Jericho Hopper 7 4-6 19, Carley Higgins 5 4-7 15, Anna Radcliff 1 0-0 3, Tariana Burkhead 0 0-0 0, totals 14 10-19 41

3-point goals: BC (Toppe 3, M. Klosterman 3, Hobson, Darlage), P (Hopper, Radcliff, Higgins)

Rebounds: BC 26 (Wischmeier 6, J. Klosterman 6), P 15 (Higgins 5)

Turnovers: BC 21, P 24

Fouls: BC 26, P 13

Junior varsity

Brownstown 21, Paoli 4 (2 quarters)

Brownstown Central (1-0): Kassidy Wischmeier 7, Brinley Baker 4, Claire Brock 4, Hunter Trueblood 3, Kassie Helton 3