BROSELEY -- Doniphan played Greenville's style of game all night, but managed to come away with the win anyway.
The No. 7 Donettes slowly but steadily earned a double-digit lead and then held on to beat the No. 10 Bears 47-35 in the first round of the Lady Royals Classic on Saturday.
"We like to push the game up and down the floor and it just wasn't working. They were doing a good job of taking their time," Doniphan coach Larry Mueller said. "That's very good basketball on their part. In return, when we got it on offense, we're just a few shots from knocking them down from taking control ourselves. But it didn't happen. We missed too many layups tonight."
With Doniphan ahead by six at halftime, Jakelyn Friend, who led the Donettes with 13 points, sank a 3 and finished a fast break off a steal by Paige Eddington to give Doniphan the first double-digit lead for either team with five minutes left in the third quarter.
Savanah Aaron added a free throw and swished a 15-foot jumper for an eight-point run for the Donettes (6-2), and they kept a 10-point lead going into the fourth quarter.
Needing to put up some points for the comeback, Greenville (2-7) scored one basket in the first four minutes of the fourth quarter and held Doniphan scoreless.
"We play hard defensively, sometimes we just don't play smart. We didn't box out real well and they killed us on the glass," Greenville coach Todd Porter said.
Down eight, McKenzie Miller, who led Greenville with 16 points, caught a pass on the block and turned for a bank shot to bring Greenville within six.
At the other end, Doniphan burned 30 seconds off the clock before finding Aaron on the block for a similar bucket. Then she picked off a pass for a quick layup and Doniphan was back up by 10. Aaron finished with 11 points.
Greenville didn't get within eight points again.
"We've got to play good defense and not get too carried away, but when we get the ball on offense we can't return the favor. We have got to play our style of ball, which is pushing it to the basket and taking it to the hole," Mueller said.
The Donettes sank 3s for their first three buckets of the game to jump out to a 9-3 lead. Eddington closed the first quarter with a pair of baskets in the final minute to put Doniphan ahead 17-9 after the first quarter.
Scoring was hard to come by in the second quarter with both teams combining for 14 points. Each team had a basket early, then didn't score for three minutes.
"We got tired," said Porter, who added that he started to notice fatigue in the middle of the second quarter. "We threw the ball to the other team, we didn't box out, we didn't cut hard on offense, when you do all that, when you are just standing around, it is pretty hard to score."
Greenville cut Doniphan's lead to four points for the first time in 10 minutes after Miller and Beth Bangert scored on consecutive possessions.
Doniphan held the ball late and burned off some clock before Aaron took a give-and-go and drove for a layup with 16 seconds left. The Donettes' defense held at the other end to send them into halftime up six.
"We try to keep pressure on the ball as best we can. The second half, we started getting some traps and that helped a little bit. A lot of our offense we hope we generate off our defense and that didn't happen a whole lot tonight," Mueller said. "It happened here and there and then we ended up missing quite a few layups."