<p>The start of girls basketball season rarely brings with it smooth and efficient offensive performance.</p>
<p>Fortunately for Center Grove, the defense was in midseason form on Tuesday night.</p>
<p>The Trojans came up with 13 steals and contained All-State candidate Rachel Loobie, scraping together a 44-36 home victory in their opener.</p>
<p>"I thought when we were in the halfcourt defensively, we looked pretty solid to where we made them earn everything," Center Grove coach Kevin Stuckmeyer said.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
<p>Mary Wilson paced the Trojans at both ends, finishing with 15 points and five steals. Claire Rake added 13 points and three thefts.</p>
<p>"We just pride ourselves on defense," Rake said. "We know that if we’re in the right position, a lot of times teams will literally just throw it to us, and even if they don’t, we just know we’ll get back in one-on-one defense and then we have the help side down low."</p>
<p>An Alainna Frankel basket in the closing seconds of a slow first quarter gave the Trojans a 9-5 edge. They followed by scoring the first eight points of the second period to stretch that lead out to a dozen. Rake knocked down a 3-pointer and followed with a steal and layup, and freshman Ella Hobson came off the bench and drilled a 3 with 6:19 to go in the half.</p>
<p>But the Flashes turned up the defensive intensity after a timeout, limiting Center Grove to just one field goal over the next nine and a half minutes. That allowed the visitors to trim the deficit to one, 22-21, at the 6:03 mark of the third quarter.</p>
<p>"We didn’t finish quarters or start quarters real well," Stuckmeyer said.</p>
<p>Layups by Loobie and Alexus Mobley gave Franklin Central its first lead at 27-24 with 1:17 on the clock. Wilson, though, hit her third 3-pointer just seconds later to tie it going into the fourth, and the Trojans scored the next five points to pull back in front for good.</p>
<p>Frankel collected four assists and four steals for Center Grove, while Aili Lothamer provided a boost on the glass with nine rebounds. Each scored four points.</p>
<p>Loobie scored 11 before fouling out in the fourth quarter for the Flashes, who did not do themselves any favors by going 9 for 22 from the foul line.</p>
<p>Ugly though it may have been at times, the Trojans will gladly take the win.</p>
<p>"It’s definitely nice, especially when we know we didn’t play as well as we could have," Rake said. "So it’s nice that we kind of grinded that one out.</p>
<p>"It motivates us to, if we get better with the smaller things, we could have won by a lot more than we did."</p>
