SPRING VALLEY — Trailing 33-21 at the half, Spring Valley girls basketball needed to find its footing when play resumed. That they did, going on a 27-8 run to build a lead and pull a 54-52 win over the finish line Thursday.

“Intensity and then shots fell for us, that’s basketball. When shots are falling for you, good things tend to happen,” Head Coach Sean Hoolihan said. “It was just really awesome the intensity that the girls came back with in the second half.”

Sophomore Katie Matthys was a huge part of the turnaround, drilling a three early in the half, getting a steal on the press and finding freshman Amelia Brunner for a layup. A steal and score from junior Kate Cipriano and some more deep balls from Matthys took the Cardinals all the way to a 48-41 lead with seven minutes to play. Spring Valley held onto that lead to seal the deal.

It was just the second game of the season for the Cardinals, going without a game since Nov. 24.

“With the group we have right now, it was actually nice because we got a lot of practice time,” Hoolihan said. “That game conditioning, right now, is a little bit harder for us right now.”

Spring Valley had a young roster a year ago, and they may be even younger this time around. The Cardinals’ three leading scorers through two games, Brunner, Matthys and freshman Kemri Schlegel are either freshmen or sophomores. That’s not including sophomore Jada Hoolihan who is dealing with an injury after leading the team in scoring and assists a year ago.

Brunner led the team in the win with 15 points, followed by Matthys with 14 points and Schlegel with 12.

Senior Rylie Fritz said it has taken some time, but the young team is starting to gel together. At the half they showed their true colors, digging deep to find something extra.

“Play good defense, rebound the ball, we need to have confidence,” Fritz said. “We start off a little tired, and then once we get into halftime, coach kind of kicks us around a little bit, we really lock in and step it up.”

Fritz said the season opener was not up to standards, and they are taking steps forward every single day.

“We have really good team chemistry right now, and if we can keep building on that, that’s just going to make the season more enjoyable whether we win, lose or whatever,” Hoolihan said. “Winning is contagious and so is losing.”

Spring Valley has prided itself on a press that wears teams down as the game goes on. They saw a bit of that against Mondovi. Combine that with some tweaks, and the defense was creating opportunity after opportunity for easy buckets on the counterattack.

“There was a stretch there in the first half where we weren’t rotating very well,” Hoolihan said. “We made those adjustments at halftime and the kids went out and executed.”

Hoolihan expects his girls to stay in the press some games and abandon it other times depending on the opponent.