Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes West Branch junior Sophie Gregory drives and scores Wednesday night. She scored a career-high 31 points, in a 62-54 road win at Fitch.

AUSTINTOWN — There are nights when you just have to take a first-quarter punch on defense to realize what’s ahead for the rest of the evening.

For the most part, that can sum up Wednesday’s evening contest between Austintown Fitch and the visiting West Branch Warriors.

After falling behind early, the Warriors locked down defensively and behind a career night from junior guard Sophie Gregory, West Branch concluded its regular season slate with a 62-54 road win.

The six-foot-two guard tallied a game-high 31 points, topping her career best of 28 that was set just one game ago in a victory at Carrollton.

“It’s just another game to me kinda,” Gregory said. “I just really wanted to win and my team really helped me with that, especially toward the end. Especially Livvie (Showalter), she screens for them and then I can just drive and get open. My teammates move really well and I just work off of them.”

Austintown Fitch (10-12) came out of the gate shooting the ball well. Senior Zayda Creque and freshman Kylie Folkwein scored a bulk of the points early. Sophomore Rachel Spalding’s scored an additional six points in the first frame and the Falcons built a 25-16 lead.

Warriors (11-11) coach Walt DeShields felt his team reacted well despite falling behind early to find some energy on defense. The Warriors held Austintown to only six points during the second quarter, as the West Branch offense got to work. They put together a 15-0 run to conclude the first half with Gregory scoring 13 of those points.

Their reward was a 33-31 lead at halftime.

“They were all scoring, it didn’t matter who,” DeShields said. “We were trying to get into the gaps to stop the drive, they’d kick it out and hit a three. We’d go out and guard the three-point line and they’d drive right by us for a layup. We got that momentum at halftime with that lead, it’s really important to have that lead even if it’s two points. That’s a different mindset going into the locker room, going into the third quarter, and then we built that lead in the third quarter.”

Gregory started off the third with a score on an And-1, followed by a score off a layup. The sequence forced an Austintown timeout.

“We always say the first couple minutes of halftime of even a game is the most important because we can get them in a hole, and get them thinking that maybe they can’t get out of it, and we keep holding on,” said Gregory.

Not a team to easily go down, the Falcons did cut the lead down to one at 44-43 following a make off the hands of junior Destanie McCullough, but a quick three from senior Hannah Egli followed by another Gregory And-1 rebuilt the lead.

Showalter added 12 points in the win, hitting some jumpers to open space in the lane while contributing to the lockdown of Fitch’s scorers.

“We did a box-and-one and had Chloe Dennison guard Creque, and she just did amazing. Creque is definitely their best player, she’s so talented, she’s amazing, and Chloe shut her down, and I’m proud of Chloe for that,” said Showalter. “I think having some offensive shots go in, it carries over to the defense, and then it carries over to my attitude in general which helps me bring the whole team up.”

Senior Cami Campbell added seven for the Warriors and Egli tacked on six. Austintown was paced by Creque’s 15-point outing and Folkwein added 12.

Tournament time is here, for Falcons coach Natalie Lynn, it’s about moving on to the next contest.

“In all honesty (Gregory) is just unstoppable, she’s a great player,” Lynn said. “We tried to guard her, (junior) Lannie Henning did a heck of a job coming off the bench and shutting her down for the minute she can give us. Lannie is a little hurt so she couldn’t stay in there a long time, but she did what she could, and that’s how we were able to come back. We have to just let this one go and get ready for Boardman, there’s no use dwelling on it even though we all want to and we feel the emotions of it.

“But if we don’t get this out of our head and get focused for Saturday then all we’ve done this season, nothing even matters.”

Fitch travels to Boardman on Saturday at 1 p.m. to open up Division I postseason play. Meanwhile, West Branch will host Ravenna next Wednesday at 7 p.m. to start the Division II tournament.