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EDWARDSVILLE - Sophomore forward Sydney Harris scored 24 points, while sophomore Elle Evans added seven as the Edwardsville High girls basketball team jumped out to a 19-6 first-quarter lead, and was never headed as the Tigers defeated Belleville East 63-34 in a Southwestern Conference game Tuesday evening at Lucco-Jackson Gym.

The Tigers scored the first six points, all by Harris, in the opening 59 seconds, then expanded their advantage to 14-2, displaying great energy throughout the first half in getting off to the fast start.

"We did have some energy, especially at the beginning with our defense," said Edwardsville head coach Lori Blade. "We got some turnovers, which led to some transition and helped out with our offense. Syd had a great, quick start, had some good looks, and the kids found her, and she was able to knock it down, and some of them she got on her own with good defensive effort. But overall, they did some really good things, and I thought that we tried to make some adjustments through the game; we just continue to foul too much. And they did a good job attacking us. We were in position some of the time, and some of the times, we weren't, but we did better than what we had been, but our help side's got to be a little bit better."

The Edwardsville defensive pressure led to some unforced turnovers from the Lancers, which led to baskets in transition for the Tigers, especially at the start.

"At the beginning, I think so," Blade said. "We tried to speed kids up, and we were able to do that the first two, three minutes of the game. And then, they settled in a little bit better. But we got some good looks, we found each other in transition, they did a good job in finding Elle in the transition. But we've got to go put a body in the board a little bit better, and we have to clean up our defense."

It's still a relatively young team, and Blade feels that the Tigers are finding out that when they jump to a big lead such as on Tuesday, the team has to keep playing, no matter what.

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"Well, we tried to mix things up a little bit," Blade said. "But it's a maturity, you know, when you get a lead, and you try to not play according to the score of the game. So it's something that we're figuring out, and second half, they played us pretty even. But we did mix up a lot of different things, and tried some different stuff, which is good. But we just have to be able to settle in and still make good decisions with the basketball, not just based on time, score, that kind of thing, but all the time, and value the possession."

Evans especially had a very good game, getting good looks underneath and hitting some good shots when needed.

"She did," Blade said. "She's a tough match-up sometimes, but she ran the floor really well, and Que (Love) and Macy (Silvey), even at times, found her, which that's good. But a lot of that goes to what we're trying to do in getting out wide, and then, she just does the one in the middle, and ends up wide open. There's been a couple of games that she's done that, and kind of slipped out, but being as big as she is, as tall as she is sometimes, she gets some mismatches and is capable of pulling it out to the three-point line, so we'll take advantage of that whenever we can."

The game started out with Harris scoring the Tigers' first six points in the opening 59 seconds, two of them on steals, as Edwardsville started off with a 6-0 lead, forcing an East time out. After a Bria James basket off the break, Harris and Evans both hit threes, and Harris made a great move inside to score to make it 14-2 for the Tigers. Three free throws by Tyler Butler sandwiched around a Jacquelin Anderson basket cut the lead to 16-5, but Edwardsville outscored the Lancers 3-1, on an Amanda Mills basket and free throw to take a 19-6 lead after the first quarter.

The Lancers got the first basket of the second quarter at the start from Butler, and from there, the Tigers reeled off 14 consecutive points, getting baskets from Harris and Love, and four straight from Evans to take a 34-8 lead, forcing another East time out. After the time out, Amiya Cole connected on a three-point play, and a Butler free throw made it 34-12, but Edwardsville then ended the half on a 7-2 run, led by Kylie Burg, Mills and Love to take a 41-14 lead at halftime.

The two teams traded points to start the second half, and early on, the Tigers went on a 6-4 run to make the score 50-18, but the Lancers scored five straight points, off a basket by Butler and a three from James to cut the lead to 50-23. The Tigers bounced back to outscore East 7-6, climaxed by a Burg three-point play just before the buzzer to make the score 57-29 at the end of the third.

Butler scored at the start of the final quarter, but four straight free throws from Harris made the score 61-31, kicking in the running clock rule after an Edwardsville time out. The Lancers scored three of the game's last five points to make the final 63-34.

The Tigers are now 7-0 on the season, and next play at Belleville West on Thursday night in a 7:30 p.m. tip-off, then host Highland in the opening game of the Scott Credit Union Shootout Saturday morning at home, with the game starting at 11:30 a.m. Edwardsville continues its pre-Holiday homestand on Dec. 16 against St. Louis Soldan International Studies and Dec. 20 against Granite City before going into the Visitation Academy Christmas Tournament, beginning Dec. 21.

Dan Brannan also contributed to this story.