The pressure was on and their main ballhandlers were out, but the Aberdeen Christian Knights found a way to finish off a hard-fought 41-37 girls’ basketball win over Faulkton at the Christian School Gym Tuesday night.

The fourth-rated Knights built a double-digit lead and then held off a furious Faulkton rally to remain unbeaten Lake Region Conference action.

“It took everybody to win tonight,” said Christian center Mallory Miller. “We had a foul out early, we had an injury early, so we just had to battle the rest of the game.”

Christian lost Joy Rohrbach to an injury in the opening half, and then lost Hanna Miller to fouls early in the fourth quarter. Faulkton cranked up the pressure and cut into the deficit, but could never get over the hump.

“Faulkton is already a tough out with just how physical (they are) and how good they are at trapping, and then when you’re without two of your primary ballhandlers for a good part of game, that just makes it so tough,” said Christiain coach Michael Rohrbach. “You just have people playing different positions that they’re not used to. I was really proud of how resilient the girls were. They didn’t fold and they kept fighting.”

The Knights played with the lead nearly the entire way. They used their strong height advantage to work their high-low offense, which ended up resulting in 16 points on dump downs from the high post.

“We got off to kind of a slow start in the first half,” said Faulkton coach Chase Casper. “Just to adjust to the size of 6-4, 6-1, is difficult. Not a lot of teams can replicate that in practice, so it’s kind of an adjustment when you step onto the floor and it took us a little while to get our footing and get comfortable out there.”

The Trojans then did their best to make Christian feel uncomfortable down the stretch by applying a press that caused problems for the Knights without their starting guards.

“Our 1-3-1 trap kind of changed the game. We put some pressure on them and they were never really comfortable after that,” Casper said. “That allowed us to get some easy buckets underneath. We hit a few three-pointers, got to the line, just ran out of time at the end there.”

Mallory Miller finished with 16 points, 13 rebounds, five blocked shots and three assists. The 6-4 center is normally the focal point of opposing defenses and can spot open teammates.

“I get doubled teamed a lot, so usually when I get double-teamed somebody else is open,” she said. “I just try to find them.”

She was a key factor in the high-low sets, either receiving passes for high-percentage shots or dishing off for some.

“We love the move the ball, because it opens up our high-low,” Coach Rohrbach said. “Mallory is such a force down low and then when she’s doubled, she actually did a heckuva job passing today off that double-team in the high post and we got Grace (Kaiser) going. Grace had one of her best games down low.”

Kaiser matched Mallory Miller’s point total of 16.

Isabel Aesoph led all players with 16 points for Faulkton.

Despite the setback, Casper took positives from the contest.

“There’s a lot of positives that we can take out of the past week,” Casper said referring to losses to top-ranked Roncalli and Tuesday night’s setback. “I know at the end of the day they still count as losses in the win-loss column and we’re still 5-5, but we’re still building towards the end of the year. We’ve improved as the season has gone on and the goal is to be playing our best at the end of the year.”

The Knights, who host Waubay-Summit at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Civic Arena, improved to 9-0 and are now the lone unbeaten team in LRC play.

“That’s a good feeling,” Coach Rohrbach said. “Hopefully, we can keep it going.”

FAULKTON (5-5): Isabel Aesoph 7 5-7 21, Shayna Heitmann 0 1-2 1, Carley Cotton 1 1-2 4, Teralyn Cramer 3 0-0 8, Ashly Senn 1 1-4 3. Totals 12-48 8-15 37.

ABERDEEN CHRISTIAN (9-0): Kaylee Block 0 1-2 1, Hanna Miller 2 0-0 5, Mallory Miller 7 1-2 16, Chloe Holt 0 1-2 1, Grace Kaiser 6 4-4 16, Chloe Bosma 1 0-0 2. Totals 16-33 7-10 41.

Faulkton 6 11 16 37

Aberdeen Christian 11 21 27 41

3-point field goals – Aesoph 2, Cotton, Cramer 2; H. Miller, M. Miller. Fouled out – H. Miller. Total fouls – Faulkton 10; Aberdeen Christian 14. Rebounds – Faulkton 31 (Heitmann 7); Aberdeen Christian 33 (M. Miller 13). Turnovers – Faulkton 14; Aberdeen Christian 17.