PENDLETON — The preseason posed a few more challenges than usual for Pendleton Heights girls basketball coach Shari Doud.

The Madison County tournament was moved from the beginning of the season to right after Christmas break, forcing Doud to scramble to find a few extra opponents.

So when the state championship runner-up from West Virginia — from St. Joseph's Central Catholic — called, the Lady Arabians coach was quick to answer.

She was curious as to how her team would stack up against a quality club from another state. She had no idea what to expect because she couldn't get a single film or scouting report on the Fighting Irish and got her first look at them during pregame warmups.

But everything worked out just fine. PH rolled to its fifth consecutive victory last Monday night, defeating the Class A No. 1 team 47-25.

“This is Indiana and I think there's a huge difference between a No. 1- ranked team in West Virginia versus an unranked, good basketball team in Indiana,” Doud said. “I thought we did a great job of representing our state.”

The Lady Arabians were slow out of the gates and trailed 4-1 nearly six and a half minutes into the game.

But senior Carlie Morlock got her team going and led PH on a 12-1 run to end the first quarter. Morlock scored seven of her game-high 13 points during that run.

“We know she’s capable of putting up double-figures for us every night,” Doud said. “She came up with big buckets at big times. It seemed like she came up with a bucket every time they started to make a little mini-run. She’s playing like you like your seniors to play.”

The PH defense didn’t allow the Irish any open shots and forced them into 24 percent shooting (9-of-37). The Lady Arabians were 17-of-33 from the field.

Sophomore Hannah Douglas added 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting for PH, while junior Mur Hagerman had seven points and six rebounds. Senior Amanda Gaskin led the Lady Arabians on the boards with seven.

So just how good was the St. Joseph’s team? Well, the story could be told by its performance the following night. The Irish went to Lapel and took the undefeated and Class 2A No. 4 Bulldogs to the wire before falling 56-54. That makes Doud feel pretty good about the team she has.

“We’d like to think that (our defense) had something to do with it,” she said. “They (St. Joseph’s) shot the ball a whole lot better than they shot the ball against us. A lot of people say ‘Well, if you would have shot the ball better you would have won’ when in fact you need to credit the defense.”