McDonald came into this season off of a Division IV district title game appearance — a loss to conference rival Western Reserve — and has come into the 2019-20 season looking for more.

A 56-42 victory over the Ursuline Fighting Irish on Monday night at McDonald High School is the latest triumph for a Blue Devils team that is 8-0 going into Christmas break.

McDonald coach Amy Dolsak was pleased with her team’s overall performance on the offensive and defensive ends of the court.

“I thought we came out and got off to a great start,” she said. “It’s a tough team (Ursuline) to play.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Paris Gilmore takes the ball up court during the first quarter against McDonald. She scored a team-high 13 points for the Fighting Irish.

“They’re a quick team, so I was happy with our defense for the most part. Offensively I was pretty pleased, so overall a nice game, a good win for us.”

The Blue Devils held an early advantage with a 22-13 lead at the end of the first quarter. They increased their lead to 35-22 by halftime.

A large part of McDonald’s offense was the duo of Molly Howard and Maddy Howard. The twin sisters combined for 35 points in the winning effort against Ursuline.

“I thought this was a statement game.” Maddy Howard said “We came out here knowing we had to give our best effort, and I think our coaches prepared us very well for this game and they gave us a good game, but in the end we came out and played our game.”

Maddy had 16 points, including three 3-pointers.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Maddy Howard, right, of McDonald and Jamie Nelson of Ursuline battle for position Monday night at McDonald High School.

“We just read each other (Molly) really well and we just know where each other are and we play together as a team, but that’s everyone. Our whole team plays together as a team.” she added.

Molly had a game-high 19 points in the contest and said that McDonald’s well-rounded roster gives her team multiple offensive playmakers on the floor.

“Us right now, I don’t want to say main scorers because all of us on our team can score, but we’ve been knocking down our shots pretty consistently, so they do good to look for us.

“We can’t just rely on one person,” she said. “We have our whole team to rely on.”

The Fighting Irsh (2-6) could never catch up to the Blue Devils and Ursuline coach Michael Kernan sees some things he’d like to see improved.

“Executing some half-court offense, definitely playing much better defense, defensive rebounding. Again, that sounds simple, but if we get better at all of those little things, maybe getting more loose balls, start winning those.

“Like I told them in the locker room, you can’t give away the first quarter which we seem to do. If we do all those little things a little better, we’ll see some nice improvement as we continue forward.”

A pair of Ursuline players hit double figures, as Paris Gilmore and Paige Ogden had 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Meanwhile, Dolsak sees good things in the road ahead for McDonald,

“Ultimately, we want to make it back to the district championship,” she said. “We have several other goals and a lot more improvement to continuously make to get us there and put us in the best position possible, so we’ll keep working.”

Molly Howard has one goal ahead.

“Keep winning,” she said. “We want to keep it up, that was one our our goals going into the season was to be undefeated. We want to keep it up.”