APEX — Cary girls’ basketball coach Donald Kent thought it would be the other way around. He expected his team’s defensive pressure to cause problems for a young Middle Creek team, problems his team could exploit.

Instead, it was Cary’s youth that cracked under Middle Creek’s full-court defensive pressure, and made the difference in 48-36 home victory for the Mustangs.

“I don’t think we played very well,” Kent said. “They may have had something to do with that, but I don’t think we played as well as we have been playing. Their pressure bothered us a lot. I thought we would handle it better, and we didn’t, and basically they handled ours better than I thought they would."

The Mustangs led 15-10 at the end of the first quarter, as the Imps battled back from a 9-0 Middle Creek run early in the quarter. The run was led by forward Emily Booker, who scored all eight of her points in the first quarter.

The second quarter proved to be the difference maker for the Mustangs, as its full-court pressure began to create turnovers, and result in open looks. Middle Creek outscored Cary 17-7 in the second.

“[Our pressure] obviously gave them a lot of trouble,” Booker said. “We created a lot of steals and we capitalized off them.”

Middle Creek coach Wes Petty said the Mustang’s second string brought a boost of enthusiasm into the game that helped swing momentum in their favor.

“I thought we started out with energy, but that group that came off the bench came in the second quarter and kind of mixed it up, got some steals and fast breaks, got some open looks on the outside,” Petty said. “Our production went up because that second group came in fired up and really got after it.”

Though a majority of Middle Creek’s points came of the fast break, the Mustangs showed good patience in the half court as well, Petty said.

“In the first half, we did a lot of good things, we were patient with the ball, and we moved the ball well,” Petty said. “We had some open looks that didn’t fall for us, but we were able to do some things defensively, tip some balls and get some steals that ended up being a really good thing.”

The second half slowed down a bit. Though Cary came out with a renewed sense of urgency, it was too little too late for the Imps. The Imps outscored the Mustangs 19-16 in the second half.

“We were confident the whole time that we could pull the game out,” Booker said. “It was a satisfying win, coming off of a loss to Apex. We’re glad we were able to do well in a big conference game.”

Middle Creek guard Rachel Ruch said Middle Creek’s intensity made the difference in the battle between two young Tri-Eight teams.

“We left everything we had on the court,” Ruch said.

And that effort was what pleased Petty the most, as his team moved to 7-3 in the conference and third place in the Tri-Eight.

“We’re always pleased with a victory," Petty said. “I was real proud of our girls. We fought; we hustled. Cary is a young team like we are. We knew we were going to be in a battle from the opening tip, so we’re happy with a win.”