HEBRON — Mt. Abram jumped out to a big lead and finally pulled away at the end, defeating Hebron 43-29 in a Class C South girls’ basketball preliminary round game Tuesday.

The Roadrunners raced out to a 10-0 lead in the opening quarter, but that was only the first of a few blows they would need to knock the Lumberjacks out of the postseason.

“It definitely wasn’t our best game,” Mt. Abram guard Summer Ross said. “We kind of cracked under pressure a lot, but we pulled through at the end. Teamwork got us there, so that’s pretty cool.”

After Mt. Abram built that early lead, Franceska Halloran scored Hebron’s first points with a 3-pointer late in the first quarter, and Maddy New hit another trey in the final seconds, and suddenly the Lumberjacks were only down five, 11-6, heading into the second period.

Hebron carried that momentum into the second period and pulled within 14-13 with less than two minutes to play in the first half.

“Our defense was really good that quarter,” Lumberjacks coach Colin Griggs said.

Ross ended the second with a pair of free throws, and then opened the second half by driving the lane for a bucket. She then followed that an easy layup off a steal that gave Mt. Abram a 20-13 cushion.

Ross finished with a game-high 20 points.

“She’s aggressive on offense,” Mt. Abram coach Larry Donald said.

The Roadrunners went up by 10 in the third, but the Lumberjacks again closed in, making it 27-23 on a Halloran 3 with less than a minute left.

“We do that every game, it feels like,” Ross said. “We just teeter-tot with each other.”

The Lumberjacks were held to four points in the fourth quarter, and the Roadrunners pulled away with a 10-0 run.

“We didn’t shoot well early, and we didn’t shot well in the fourth,” Griggs said. “Those two things made a difference. … We were right in that game the whole way, but that fourth quarter, we struggled.”

Mt. Abram focused its defense on stopping Halloran and New.

“Lindsay Huff and Camryn Wahl, I think their defense in that triangle-and-two was key,” Donald said. “The other girls did well, and that’s what I told them, ‘We’re going to take those two girls out of the game. Now it’s a three-on-three game, our three has to be better than their three.’ And I thought we were.”

Mt. Abram (11-8) will face Madison in the quarterfinals. The Roadrunners defeated the Bulldogs 57-51 on Jan. 29.

Halloran finished with 11 points for Hebron, and New, a senior from Poland, scored eight points in her final game. Her last two points late in the fourth quarter put her over 900 points in her three-year career.

Eliza Quinones pulled down 21 rebounds for the Lumberjacks.

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