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Catholic High clamped down on defense in Monday night’s non-district basketball game against visiting Teurlings Catholic.

Travis Gallien and Bradford Cain were each averaging 15 points per game, but the two Rebels combined for only 18 points in Catholic High’s 42-32 win.

The Rebels (12-14) missed their first seven shots from the floor in the first quarter and didn’t make a field goal until Logan Myers’ basket with 1:50 to go.

The cold streak continued in the second quarter, which saw the Rebels make 2 of 9 field goals before Cain made three straight shots to reduce a 23-8 deficit to 23-15 at the half.

“Jaiden Mitchell played one of the best games I’ve seen him play defensively,” CHS coach Casey McGrew said. “Bradford had seven points in the second quarter. He only had four in the second half. That’s all I asked Jaiden to do. I said to not let him score, and he did that.”

The Rebels shot 26% (11 of 43 FG). Cain, with 12 points, was the only double-digit scorer. Gallien, who scored 27 points in a previous game against St. Thomas More, finished with six.

“We got No. 4 (Gallien) in foul trouble,” McGrew said. “He had two fouls in the first quarter. When he’s not hitting from the outside, he’ll go down low and start banging people, but we had him in foul trouble. Hopefully that got him out of his game.”

Mitchell led a balanced scoring effort with 10 points. Tristan Lewis and Kaiden Faulk each added 8 points with Tyler Templeton (5), Kylen Chretien (5), Chris Green (4) and Joab Trosclair (2) all chipping in.

Faulk and Chretien came off the bench to help spark an 11-2 run in the first half. The Panthers regularly got second and third looks at the basket. On one occasion in the third quarter, Green’s bucket was preceded by three offensive rebounds.

“Tyler Templeton is a big part of that,” McGrew said. “He’s leading us in offensive rebounds. That’s another part of the game-plan: crash the offensive and defensive boards and take charges.”

Other than second chance points, much of the Panthers’ offensive production came on lay-ups and short jumpers in the lane. Mitchell made a habit of penetrating the lane where he would pull up for a high-percentage shot or dish the ball to a teammate driving up the baseline.

“I don’t like playing zone defenses,” McGrew said. “We’re going to try and pull you out of that zone. We’ll try to be patient, disciplined and look for lay-ups.”

“We try to preach to get a middle look first. If it’s not there, we can kick it outside, but I would much rather see us get it to the middle. If it’s not there, we can kick it outside.”

“What a great environment here tonight,” Rebels coach Jake Dueitt said. “Our kids played extremely hard, but we’re not ready. We’re young. The ball didn’t fall for us. That’s the disappointing thing. We executed a lot of good things, and the ball didn’t fall. All we can do is keep being positive and working.”