NATCHEZ &045; With three-fifths of his starting five occupying bench time through the entire first quarter, St. Andrew’s head coach Burnsie King watched his Lady Saints stub their toes.

However, once the regular five checked in at the scorer’s desk at the start of the second period, King was pleased with the finished product.

St. Andrew’s post LaReina Adams, one of the three that missed the opening quarter, got 12 of her game-high 16 points before intermission to put adequate distance between her Lady Saints (9-1) and Cathedral in a 55-23 victory over the Lady Green Wave.

&uot;We had three starters on the bench because they missed practice during the holidays last week,&uot; King said. &uot;It wasn’t a punishment, I just thought I’d reward those who were at practice. But once they came out in the second quarter, we got cranked up.&uot;

On the strength of Adams’ play in the lane, around the hoop and along the baseline, St. Andrew’s turned a 6-4 advantage into a 13-point lead in less than three minutes during the second period.

Cathedral (0-5), which played solid defense and did not appear to be rattled by the Lady Saints’ press defense in the first period, came unglued.

At one point the Lady Wave turned the ball over three consecutive times while trying to inbound the ball off a St. Andrew’s made basket.

&uot;They know that’s our bread and butter,&uot; King said.

Lady Wave assistant coach Erin Binns, who filled in Tuesday for head coach Peter Arnold while he took care of his ill mother, was pleased with the first quarter performance but was disappointed her team did not handle the pressure better.

&uot;In that second quarter we got bogged down a bit and couldn’t get across halfcourt,&uot; Binns said. &uot;When you can’t do that, you’re not going to do much of anything.&uot;

Adams made her presence known early and often in the second period with baseline jumpers, putbacks and baskets in transition.

Cathedral’s careless play with the rock toward the end of the first half helped push its deficit to 21 points, 29-8, before Danielle Smith converted a putback with 52 seconds before the break to put the score at 29-10.

Smith, who scored in each period, led the Lady Wave with 10 points.

When Cathedral was able to set up its offense, it did execute on several designed plays.

&uot;If we could get it across and into the frontcourt to run our offense there are some set plays that they know how to run,&uot; Binns said. &uot;They did that well tonight. In fact, we learned one at practice today that they executed in the game well tonight.&uot;

The Lady Wave had a tough time scoring in the third period, not notching their first basket until the 4:09 mark when Danielle Smith scored on a nice feed from Mattie Smith, who finished with five points, to make it 39-12.

The Lady Saints held Cathedral without a field goal for another 2 1/2 minutes before yielding six points in the last minute, as their lead was cut inside 30 points, 47-18 at the end of three.

&uot;Defensively, I thought we played well, but we had too many turnovers on the other end of the court,&uot; King said. &uot;But we hadn’t played in eight days, so maybe it had something to do with that.’

For King’s seniors this was one final hurrah in Natchez, a place where St. Andrew’s lost to Cathedral when the current crop of veterans were freshmen.

&uot;We came to Natchez with a team made up of mostly freshmen three years ago and got beat 20-19,&uot; King said. &uot;Those seniors saw some hard times. But now we’ve won nine straight and I’m happy for them. All those struggles are starting to pay off.&uot;