O'FALLON, ILL. • The O'Fallon High girls basketball team was not pleased with its season-opening loss to Chatham-Glenwood on Saturday.

Senior forward Divine Lane did something about it 48 hours later.

Lane scored a team-high 13 points to lead the Panthers to a 55-44 win over McCluer North in a second-round game in the third annual O'Fallon Tip-off Classic on Monday.

“It was great to see us working together, finally, and to start flowing,” Lane said.

O'Fallon, bolstered by the inside muscle of Lane and some strong guard play, jumped to a 12-3 lead. Lane triggered the early outburst with four baskets.

The Panthers (1-1) pushed the lead to 24-7 at the break before the contest changed dramatically. The second half became a foul-fest.

“It was a tale of two halves, to be honest with you,” O'Fallon coach Ryan Massey said. “In the first half, I felt a little better about the rhythm of the game. In the second half, there was almost no rhythm and that's hard to play in sometimes.”

The choppiness seemed to play into North's hands.

The Stars trimmed the deficit to 38-24 late in the third quarter and then got as close as seven points – 49-42 on a free throw by senior guard Anasha Hurst with 50.1 seconds to play.

North coach Pat Daugherty lamented the rough start, but added he saw some definite positives.

“I actually think we might have won the second half,” said Daugherty as North outscored O'Fallon by a 37-31 margin. “I thought we just fouled a lot. They (O'Fallon) shot 34 free throws and they hit them when they needed to hit them. They were in the bonus in the third quarter and that hurts you when it happens that early.”

Eboni Acoff, Marta Durk, Jayla Stubblefield and Tamia Cash all scored seven points for the winners. Cash and Stubblefield scored their points in the fourth quarter.

“They are both extremely athletic guards,” Massey said. “We're just working out some kinks right now.”