EBEN — The Superior Central girls haven’t had the luxury of playing with a lead too many times this basketball season.

They were able to achieve that Saturday afternoon, however, in a 43-28 conquest of the Brimley Bays.

This marked the first victory this season for the Cougars, who improved to 1-4.

It was a different outcome for the Superior Central boys as they dropped a 71-69 overtime decision to Brimley.

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SC girls 43, Brimley 28

The Cougars led 12-3 after the first quarter and 20-15 at halftime.

“That feels good,” Cougars coach Greg Trowbridge said. “That takes a little bit of the pressure off. I thought we had a real good effort on defense.

“The girls hustled, but we’re still struggling on offense. We had a little bit of a cushion and it pretty much stayed that way until the end of the game.”

The Cougars (1-4) gave themselves some breathing room by opening the third stanza with 10 unaswered points for a 30-15 cushion.

Senior Emma Rondeau led the Cougars with 17 points, while Taylor Silta added 14. Kendra Carrick had 13 for the Bays.

“Emma went pretty strong to the hoop,” said Trowbridge. “She had some good moves inside and Taylor hit some big 3s for us. We also had real good hustle from Sophia Maki. I thought she gave us a boost. Sophia’s very quick and she came up with a couple big steals.”

The Cougars, who lost the JV game, travel to Forest Park tonight.

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Brimley 71, SC boys 69 (OT)

The Cougars (1-2) never led in the overtime, but pulled within 70-69 on a jump shot from top of the key by junior Beau Rondeau with 17 seconds left.

“After the game I told the guys everybody could have done something a little better, including me,” first-year Cougars coach Branson Richard said. “We knew the press was coming and did an extremely good job handling it. We told the guys we needed to play our offense and not get flustered. We held our composure better than we did (on Dec. 11) at Munising (in a 69-44 loss).”

Brimley was in position to seal the deal when it grabbed a 64-56 lead after a lay-in by senior Sam Hopper with 2:25 left.

The Cougars, however, scored the next seven points and climbed within 64-63 on a 25-foot jump shot by senior point guard Wade Krysiak with 27 seconds to go.

After a free throw by Brimley, SC’s Joe Heinonen forced OT by draining a pair of free throws with 4.1 seconds left.

Three of the Cougars’ starters fouled out at crunch time with Krysiak departing late in regulation and Heinonen and Rondeau each drawing their fifth fouls in OT.

“We went after their top three guys,” Brimley coach Matt Bathey said. “It helped when they fouled out.”

Heinonen and Rondeau finished with 22 points each and Krysiak had 17.

The Cougars, who lost the JV game 52-36, host Stephenson Friday.