Aberdeen Roncalli opened the season in dominant fashion on Thursday night.

The Cavaliers cruised to a 42-9 Northeast Conference girls’ basketball win over Redfield at Roncalli Gym.

Roncalli head coach Derek Larson was pleased with how his team opened the contest.

“(We) came out and kind of took care of business right away,” Larson said. “I thought we got things going just because of how hard we played on the defensive end. We kind of made pressure for their guards and just made things difficult.”

The Cavaliers scored the first points of the game on a pair of free throws from Maddie Huber. It was the beginning of a 24-0 Roncalli run that lasted well into the second quarter.

“We talked about in the locker room that we just have to come out aggressive and come out of the gate, push them to their limits,” Huber said. “We had to full court them, we had to tire them out, and I think that just paid off in the end. Looking at the score in the first half, we outplayed them very well.”

Not only was the Roncalli offense firing on all cylinders, the defense was stifling the Pheasants’ ability to get into an offensive rhythm.

“Things didn’t go well offensively, obviously,” Redfield coach Tommy Gregg said. “They do some things to make that happen. They full court you and we picked up the ball. They baited us into some situations that cost us some points and led to easy baskets for them.”

Redfield was able to score its first basket with three minutes left in the second quarter, on a jumper from Katie Rozell, the team’s only basket of the half.

“I thought we just made things difficult for them,” Larson said. “We overplayed passing lanes and did some little things right on the defensive end. That’s kind of where we set the tone. We try to set the tone on the defensive end for our team.”

The Pheasants were able to outscore the Cavaliers 7-5 in the third quarter, which was a bright spot for Gregg and his team.

“The third quarter I was pretty pleased,” Gregg said. “I thought we held our own there.”

Despite the large lead, Larson reminded his team of the low-scoring second half.

“We told all of our kids that we got beat in the third quarter,” Larson said. “Five points scoring (in the third quarter) and we only scored 10 points the whole second half, so that wasn’t ideal. We’ve got to be better offensively. We want to make sure that we’re winning every quarter.”

Huber, who finished with a team-high 19 points, said the team struggled to hit shots in the second half.

“Shots weren’t falling and there was nothing we could do about that,” Huber said. “We just have to look to score in the paint more and then, if our shots outside aren’t falling, we’re going to have to look for a way to score inside.”

Redfield (0-1) travels to Faulkton on Monday, and Gregg said his team will look to improve each day.

“We’re trying to get better every day,” Gregg said. “We’ll go back to the drawing board. We’ve got practice tomorrow, and we talked about that; just get better. Our schedule is tough here early on. The big thing is just getting our younger kids comfortable playing.”

Roncalli (1-0) will host Mobridge-Pollock on Tuesday. Larson said there were positive and negative takeaways from the opening game of the season.

“I thought we played really hard on the defensive end. I thought our effort was really good, really there. That’s, I think, the high point” Larson said. “Still a lot of things to improve upon. Glad we have game one under our belt. Hopefully, some of those nerves that we had going into game one are now over, and just kind of build off of this one.”

Huber stressed a simple message for her team moving forward.

“Keep playing hard and we just have to finish games like we did today,” Huber said.

REDFIELD (0-1): Katei Rozell 2 2-2 7, Chloe Zens 1 0-0 2. Totals 3 2-2 9.

ABERDEEN RONCALLI (1-0): McKenna O’Keefe 1 0-0 2, Maddie Huber 6 3-4 19, Claire Crawford 2 0-0 6, Ava Hanson 3 1-2 7, Ava Danielson 1 0-0 2, Rylee Voeller 2 2-2 6. Totals 15 6-8 42.

Redfield 0 2 9 9

Aberdeen Roncalli 17 32 37 42

3-point field goals – Rozell; Huber 4, Crawford 2. Total fouls – Redfield 13; Aberdeen Roncalli 9.