OBSERVER Photo by Ron Szot Pictured above, Dunkirk’s Gina Salerno (10) is trapped by Southwestern’s Reece Beaver (5) and Kim Truver (23) during Monday’s basketball game at Dunkirk High School.

As the season wears on, games in the CCAA Div. 1 West don’t get any easier.

The Southwestern girls basketball team used a 25-5 second quarter run to propel themselves in front the Dunkirk Marauders en route to a 77-20 victory on Monday at Dunkirk High School.

“This league is so good,” said Dunkirk head coach Ken Ricker. “The difference between this loss, the Chautauqua Lake loss, the Maple Grove loss — everybody on those teams play hard.”

Southwestern came out of the gates with their vicious full-court press and it ate up the Marauders, who were playing without their starting point guard Jessica Beehler due to an illness.

“They are that much better than us,” said Ricker. “With Jessica, without Jessica. Every kid on their team plays hard the whole team. We’re not there yet.”

Dunkirk tried multiple ways of bringing the ball up the court, but the Trojan press kept creating steal after steal, resulting in easy transition points.

Southwestern’s Carissa Minarovich scored 11 of her 15 points in that first quarter, giving the Trojans a 24-7 lead.

The second quarter didn’t go any better for the Marauders.

Southwestern’s press did even more damage in the second quarter, as the Marauders struggled to find any consistency at point guard without Beehler in the lineup.

“I think we’ve been working from the day we started on sustaining that pressure on the ball,” said Southwestern head coach Dave Turnbull. “I thought we did a pretty effective job in the first half, but I know that Dunkirk not having their point guard [Beehler] certainly didn’t help them. She’s a good ball player.”

After an Olivia Smith 3-point basket opened the quarter, the Trojans used a 25-2 run to finish the quarter, giving them a 49-12 lead at the half.

During that run, Southwestern’s leading scorer Erin Radack got involved, using her great vision to create for her teammates as well as herself.

“It’s been fun the last three years to watch [Erin] grow,” said Turnbull. “We have some very young players and she’s really good at distributing the basketball. She’s certainly a multi-dimensional player.”

For Southwestern, four of their five starters finished the game with double figures in the scoring column. The hustle stats were all there for the Trojans, as they picked up 21 offensive rebounds and collected 32 steals all as a team.

For Dunkirk, the turnovers — with or without Beehler — are beginning to plague this team. The Marauders turned the ball over 35 times on Monday, making it hard for them to get into the game.

“We didn’t guard the ball, we didn’t guard the high post, we didn’t box out — there wasn’t a single aspect we did hard,” said Ricker. “That’s the remainder of the season if we don’t play hard.”

The Marauders were led by Nadara Odell and Olivia Smith, who each scored five points to lead the team.

As Southwestern continues to push towards the top of the division, even after the close loss to Olean last week, Coach Turnbull just wants his girls to focus on playing hard.

“I tell our girls every day just to play hard,” said Turnbull. “If you really get after it from the tip to the final buzzer you’re going to at least get a chance. We’ve been doing that so far this season.”

For Coach Ricker and the Lady Marauders, he just wants to see his girls compete.

“You hope they compete, but they didn’t compete,” said Ricker. “I don’t know what growth there is to be honest because we don’t compete. I’ll always pride my team’s on being on edge and ready to compete. Coach Turnbull has his girls there, but we’re not there yet.”

DUNKIRK (20)

Odell 2 1 5, Smith 2 0 5, Nance 1 1 4, Carter 0 1 1, Porter 1 0 2, Garcia 1 0 3.

3-pointers: Nance, Smith, Garcia.

SOUTHWESTERN (77)

Beaver 3 1 7, Hoose 6 1 13, Genareo 7 0 14, Radack 7 0 17, Minarovich 8 0 17, Truver 1 1 3, Lundmark 1 0 2, Kranzo 2 0 4.

DUNKIRK 7 5 8 0 – 20

SOUTHWESTERN 24 25 17 11 – 77