Staff photo / Brian Yauger Howland’s Jamie DeSalvo (24) looks for a shot while being guarded by Maplewood’s Marissa Ventura (23) Wednesday night.

HOWLAND — It’s not easy to prepare for a team you scheduled the day of, even more so when the opposing team is three divisions above you.

That was the case for Maplewood after agreeing to take a game against Howland, who needed a match for its annual Toni Ross Spirit Foundation girls basketball tournament. According to Tigers coach Aaron Pounds, multiple teams turned down their offer to play, but Maplewood stepped up to the plate.

In a battle of Division I and Division IV teams, the Division I team reigned supreme, with the Tigers winning 67-35.

For both coaches however, this wasn’t about the final score. Pounds wanted to be sure his team didn’t look past any opponent and hone in on some skills they’ve been working on in practice. First-year coach Stephanie Pykare at Maplewood however, wanted to get her girls a tough test.

For a school in the Northeastern Athletic Conference, facing off against a Division I school doesn’t happen often. Pykare wanted to use this chance to get the team some extra experience, which will be useful come tournament time.

“We joined and decided to play Howland this morning, actually,” Pykare said. “Going into it, we knew we had a challenge. We wanted to give it our best shot. We are looking at the long term goal of the season, having success, competing for the NAC title and then looking on to the tournament.

“We want to have high goals. This is a building-type of game where we’re just trying to improve on our skills. In the second half, we decided collectively that we weren’t going to give up. We were going to work on the areas where we need to and just just do what we could.”

Rockets senior Marissa Ventura scored a bulk of the team’s points Wednesday with 20. She was held to eight points in the first half, but matched it in the third quarter and added on four more in the final quarter.

Maplewood also went a perfect 10-of-10 from the free throw line.

For the Tigers, Wednesday’s game was just about execution. After some nail biters to start the season, Howland was grateful for a chance to just do their thing.

“It was nice to see the girls go out there and have a little bit more fun and not be so stressed,” Pounds said. “We’ve played several nail biters early on, some pretty tough games.”

Howland, who sits at 5-4 on the year, started off 0-3 after losses to Hoover, Salem and Massillon Perry. The first two losses were by a combined four points.

Since then, the Tigers have been finding their footing and getting better each time they hit the court. Pounds, who is in his second year with the team, mentioned how the team is starting to click. As the wins keep coming, so will the confidence.

“We’ve still got to get a little bit better on defense,” Pounds said. “Our scoring has been pretty decent, but we’ve been telling them, ‘The golden number is 40.’ I think we can beat anybody, any night, if we can hold them under 40 points. We lost to Hoover in our first game 41-40. I told the girls at halftime, if we can keep under 40, we win the game. Sure enough, they scored 41 and beat us.

“We’ve still got to get better on defense. Obviously better rebounding and boxing out and all that stuff, some of the fundamentals but playing together as a team, all that stuff moving the ball, it’s starting to click. I can see it. We just needed to get a little bit of success. Once you get a little bit of success, they really start to buy in.”

Alyssa Pompelia led the Tigers with 20 points. Taylor Lawrence, Alyssa Massucci and Jamie DeSalvo each tacked on nine.

Both teams play again today, with Maplewood (4-4) facing Struthers in the consolation game. Howland takes on Champion in the tournament’s championship game. Tipoff for the Rockets is set for 6 p.m. with the Tigers set to tipoff at 7:30 p.m.

Howland’s next two games are a part of the South Range Holiday Tournament where they’ll face South Range as well as Akron Hoban.