The Peacock Toilers were given a good fight by the Central Cyclones during Tuesday’s senior girls basketball match-up. In the end however, the seven-time defending champion Toilers came away with a 74-48 win at Central Collegiate.

The win improves Peacock’s record to 6-0 on the year, while Central drops to 5-2 with both their losses coming against the Toilers.

“We had some girls stepping up and hitting some shots that aren’t always near the top of the scoresheet, so that was nice to see, it gets everybody excited and overall it was a good game for us,” said Peacock coach Craig McDougall.

The Toilers used a consistent offensive performance to pull away from the Cyclones over the final 20 minutes after a close first half.

McDougall said they focused on attacking for offensive rebounds and it paid off, “We were getting aggressive on the offensive glass, so we had a lot of second chances and it was good to see our girls get aggressive, that’s something that we’ve been preaching and we’re starting to pick-up on that,” he said.

The Cyclones have shown a lot of growth over the course of the season, but coach Bryan Adams said this game was a reminder that they still have room to grow.

“They did a really nice job, in the second half, we turned the ball over a number of times and they made us pay for it, that’s what good teams do and all the credit for them for that,” said Adams.

“We didn’t back and we’re learning. It’s been a steep learning curve for our girls this year, it’s a different philosophy, it’s a different system that has been put in here and they’re learning. We have lot of time to keep on improving and we expect that we’ll be better by the time we play them again.”

Kennedy Ward scored a team-high 13 points in the win for Peacock, while Piper Ingalls picked up 10 points.

Ashlyn Jesse posted a game-high 16 points for Central in defeat, while Nylah Seaborn added nine points.

Central is off now until they host Assiniboia on Feb. 27. The Toilers will be back on the court on Thursday to host the Vanier Spirits.

Vanier is coming off 63-50 win over the Caronport Cougars on Tuesday night. Annah McDonald led the Spirits with 20 points in the win, while Mya Matthies had a game-high 22 points in the loss for Caronport.

The Spirits sit at 2-5 after the win, while Caronport drops to 1-5.