“It’s hard to win a basketball game when you only have three good quarters,” said Warren coach Jenny Phillips, whose Dragons are 4-6 overall. “We’ve got to be able to come out on the floor and give it our best for all 32 minutes.”

Emma and younger sister Ella Elensky scored 9 points apiece in the fourth, and DCC improved to 9-1 overall.

“In the first half, we started down and worked our way back offensively and kept the lead until halftime,” said Phillips. “I knew DCC would come out in the third quarter and throw something different at us. We managed, going back-and-forth with them through the third. Coming out in the fourth, they gained a lot of momentum with some early buckets and never looked back.”

Emma Elensky led five DCC scorers with 20 points, Hope Jacob added 16, and Ella Elensky 13.

Photo by Mark Evans Warren’s Alana Stuart looks for an opening against DuBois Central Catholic’s Mattie Gritzer (31) and Emma Elensky (21) on Saturday at Sheffield High School.

Warren connected on six 3-pointers in the first half, including three from Alana Stuart, but the Dragons had just one trey in the Crusaders’ 41-19 second half.

Stuart had 8 points, including two 3-pointers, and Alyssa Farr and Emily Davidson added 3s in Warren’s 17-6 second quarter. The Dragons led 25-19 at halftime.

“The girls definitely played tough,” said Phillips. “I’ll never take that away from them, but it’s working through tough basketball and making the right choices that we need to keep working on.”

Stuart had 16 points, Wotorson 9 and Farr 7 in the loss to the District 9 opponent.

“It was great to be out at Sheffield and have that day for my five Sheffield girls,” said Phillips of the program’s Warren-Sheffield co-op. “They come to Warren day in and day out and bust their butts, and to have something like that for them where they could play in their home school was truly special.”

DUBOIS CENTRAL CATHOLIC (60)

Hanes 1 2 4, Jacob 8 0 16, EmElensky 8 4 20, ElElensky 6 0 13, Sebring 2 3 7, Gritzer 0 0 0, Jenkins 0 0 0, Baummer 0 0 0. Totals 25 9 60.

WARREN (44)

Farr 3 0 7, Davidson 2 0 5, E.Roell 1 1 3, Stuart 6 0 16, Wotorson 4 0 9, Bennett 0 0 0, Rodgers 1 0 2. Totals 17 1 44.

3-point goals–ElElensky, Farr, Davidson, Stuart 4, Wotorson.

DuBois Central Catholic 13 6 17 24 — 60

Warren 8 17 11 8 — 44