It was rough. It was physical, but it was not close as the top ranked Lady Lions blew out host Yorktown 71-39 in Hoosier Heritage Conference basketball action Tuesday.

Rushville jumped out to a 6-0 lead as the Lady Tigers could not handle the full-court defense by the Lady Lions. Shelbie Justice, Alexa Bess and Kaleigh Andrews all scored in the early going.

After Yorktown got on the board with a free throw from Mackenzie Moore, Meagan Hittle and Justice scored to extend the lead to 10-1.

Yorktown cut the deficit to seven on two free throws by Jill Hopper, but buckets from Morgan Herbert and Andrews had the lead at 16-7 after one quarter of action.

Foul trouble plagued the Lady Lions in the first half, but that did not stop the offensive onslaught. Rushville scored the first 10 points of the second quarter to lead 26-7.

A triple from Yorktown’s Moore momentarily stopped the bleeding, but the Lady Lions scored the next seven points. Ashley Hedrick capped the run with a free throw as the Lady Lions led 33-10 with 1:39 to play in the half. The Lady Lions’ defense did not allow anything easy for the Lady Tigers as Kayla Niehoff had a blocked shot to keep Yorktown quiet on the offensive end.

Yorktown got a pair of free throws from Taylor O’Dell to end the Rushville run.

Rushville’s Taylor Linville hit two from the charity stripe to close the first half with the Lady Lions leading 35-12.

A Hopper rebound bucket got the Lady Tigers started in the third quarter. Hopper then found Moore for the easy bucket and the deficit was 35-16.

The early spurt was halted as Justice drained a triple for the Lady Lions. Justice followed that with a traditional three-point play and the lead was back to 25 points. Three straight lay-ups by Bess made it a 12-0 run and Yorktown called for a time-out as Rushville led 47-16.

The Lady Lions closed out the quarter on a 9-5 run to lead 58-21 heading the final eight minutes.

Yorktown scored the first six points of the fourth quarter – four from Molly Beard.

A score from Justice stopped the run. Following four straight Lady Tiger points, Niehoff scored in the paint to double up the Lady Tigers 62-31.

Rushville cruised the final four minutes of the game to remain undefeated on the year.

For the Lady Lions, Justice scored 20 points followed by Bess 15, Andrews 13, Herbert seven, Hedrick five, Hittle three, Niehoff two, Beaman two, Bekah Miller two and Linville two.