Tamaqua coach Erika Davis has been concerned about her team’s “roller coaster” season thus far, but Thursday night’s 60-45 Schuylkill League win over Panther Valley was a smooth ride.

The Raiders led 25-14 when Serena Jones sank two free throws at the 3:43 mark of the second period, and never let the advantage slip to single digits the rest of the way.

“We let the game come to us,” Davis said. “I liked the way we shared the ball and controlled the tempo.”

After the Raiders’ Sophia Boyle hit a three to put her team ahead 7-4 with 6:10 to go in the first period, neither team could score for the next two minutes until Boyle cashed in on a driving layup.

A 7-0 Raider run was finally stopped when PV’s Erika Dubosky scored on a put back at 3:25. Tamaqua’s 1-3-1 half court defense held the Panthers to just one more basket the rest of the period.

The second eight minutes began with a nice feed by PV’s Sera Robin to Dubosky to get the home team to within four, but Jones scored a couple of baskets for a 21-14 Raider advantage.

Davis said the fact that Tamaqua was a “turnover machine,” played a huge part in it losses this season, but on this night, Panther Valley returned the favor by committing 16 turnovers in the contest.

“We play helter-skelter at times,” said Panther Valley coach Bill “Dapper” Lynn. “We need to look back door when they cut off the passing lanes, and we didn’t do that tonight.

“We also always seemed to have one girl out of position on defense.”

Leading 34-19 at halftime, Tamaqua continued to control play in the third quarter. Within the first minute, Boyle and McKenna Meckes hit triples as the Raiders’ lead ballooned to 40-22. Panther Valley never could muster two baskets in a row during the period, and were often one-and-done on their shot attempts.

“We did a pretty good job of sandwiching Dubosky with our defensive pressure,” said Davis about the Panthers’ leading scorer. “We stuck to our game plan and it worked.”

Lynn liked his team’s fourth-quarter effort as the Panthers doubled Tamaqua’s nine points, but the outcome was never in doubt for the Raiders.

TOP GUNS ... Makenna Kane led the Raiders (7-5, 6-3) in scoring with 17 points and Boyle added 14. The Panthers (4-9, 2-7) were paced by Dubosky’s 25 points.

BOMBS FOR BASKETS ... Tamaqua nailed eight triples on the night, making any comeback virtually impossible for the Panthers. Kane scored 12 of her 17 points with treys, scoring mostly from the baseline.

WHO’S UP NEXT? ... With COVID-19 wreaking havoc on schedules, both coaches said that from day-to-day they can’t be certain who they might play next, which makes preparing for a specific upcoming opponent not necessarily a priority.

TAMAQUA

Kane 5-3-4-17, S. Hope 0-0-0-0, Boyle 4-3-5-14, E. Hope 5-2-4-12, Jones 4-2-5-10, Meckes 3-0-0-7, Wingler 0-0-0-0, Plasha 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 21-10-18-60.

PANTHER VALLEY

Dubosky 11-1-1-25, Maynard 4-1-3-9, Krapf 2-0-0-6, Robin 0-3-3-3, Eidle 1-0-0-2, Ha. Shreffler 0-0-0-0, Wehr 0-0-0-0, Vermillion 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 18-5-7-45.

Tamaqua 14 20 17 9 - 60

Panther Valley 8 11 8 18 - 45

Three- pointers: Tamaqua - Kane 4, Boyle 3, Meckes 1. Panther Valley - Dubosky 2, Krapf 2.