In the first game of the season and the first game of the girls’ side of the Hutamaki Hardwood Classic, the De Soto high school Wildcats bested the South West Early College Indians in a 75-17 blowout.

Throughout the entire game, the Wildcats had the upper hand. They consistently outscored SWEC in each period, and kept the Indians in the single digit range all the way up to the last few minutes of the first half.

Junior post Julia Johnson had a good game, scoring a 22 points for the Wildcats with a 66 percent field goal percentage. Johnson was often matched up with SWEC post Arianna Watson, but Watson struggled to contain her for most of the half.

Before the game, Johnson remarked that her teammates were feeling positive and ready to take on SWEC.

“I think we’re well prepared for tonight’s game, and hopefully we can execute right. We’re positive; we’re getting hyped for the game,” Johnson said.

While De Soto won by a significant margin, that was mostly due to an incredible amount of turnovers. SWEC had 28 turnovers, and De Soto managed to capitalize on this SWEC weakness. De Soto earned 45 points off of those turnovers alone.

Junior post Moriah Grizzle also had a solid game as well, scoring 16 points of the wildcat’s 75. Along with being a good source of points for DHS, Grizzle also had half of De Soto’s rebounds in the second half.

On the other side of the court, SWEC’s sophomore Marshonda Harrison led her team, scoring 14 of their 17 points. Harrison, the point guard, found success by driving the paint in between De Soto defenders.

Unfortunately, Harrison’s efforts were not backed up by her team. Of the SWEC starting five, none scored a point beside Harrison, at all. The remaining three points came from backup Ha’Tiayan Watkins, who managed to get a 3 pointer in in the second half.

After a quick victory for the Wildcats, they will look to compete against the Olathe Northwest Ravens in their second game of the Hutamaki Hardwood Classic on Friday, Dec. 10, at 5:30 p.m.