Photo by Rick Thorp Beallsville’s Ashley Howell goes up for a basket during Thursday’s game against Bridgeport.

WOLFHURST — As Thursday night’s game between unbeaten Beallsville and winless Bridgeport unfolded, it quickly became apparent the Bulldogs were the ones being bullish at both ends of the floor.

But as the contest evolved, the Blue Devils wore on the home squad, using their experience and overall court savvy to their advantage in pulling away for a 43-25 victory inside the John J. Havlicek Gymnasium.

Beallsville’s two senior pillars — Ashlie Louden and Ashley Howell — evenly divided 28 points and the Blue Devils overcame a sluggish offensive start by outscoring the Bulldogs 23-6 in the second half in improving to 6-0.

“If we would’ve played (the way we played down the stretch) the whole time I’d be a lot happier right now,” Beallsville coach Tori Jarrett said.

Jarrett was perplexed as to why her team started slow. She had theories for its lack of focus. The bottom line, though, was it wasn’t getting the job done at either end, allowing Bridgeport to grab the early momentum.

“Our attitude just wasn’t there,” she said. “It didn’t seem like we were ready to play. I don’t know what it was.”

The Bulldogs (0-8) were ready to play on a night when not many gave the girls in white much of a chance to slay the team from Monroe County. The first half of the season hasn’t been kind for Greg Harkness’ squad, but Bridgeport found its groove early, he said, due to pure hustle.

“I thought, in the first half, we were the more aggressive and more physical team,” Harkness, the Bulldogs’ head coach, observed.

Bridgeport trailed by just one — 11-10 — after one, and remained toe-to-toe with the reigning district semifinalist until halftime.

Jaren Tucker, who paced the Bulldogs with a game-high 17 points, hit two of her five 3s in the period, the last tying the game at 15-15.

Louden, who inked collegiately with Bluefield State earlier in the day, answered with a 3 of her own, putting the Blue Devils back up, 18-15. But Bridgeport scored four straight — a jumper by Meleah Tiber and two free throws by Tucker — to go up one.

A Howell bucket gave Beallsville a 20-19 halftime lead.

“I told the girls they were going to come out and get after it because they’re a good defensive team and be more physical with you,” Harkness said. “We just couldn’t quite respond.”

Tucker canned a 3 to start the third, putting Bridgeport up, 22-20. But Beallsville went on a 23-3 run to finish the game.

“Our offense didn’t even look better in the third,” Jarrett said. “It looked better in the fourth, I thought. We started running our zone motion offense correctly.”

Howell and Louden combined to score 17 points in the second half, fueling Beallsville’s second-half surge. They were backed by freshman Hallie Bommer, who finished with nine points.

“I think we’re doing pretty well,” Jarrett said of her squad, which has eight players and used six Thursday. “I don’t know if we’ve really been tested yet. But we play Morgan (a D3 regional semifinalist last year) on Monday, so I think that will be our first little test. They lost a lot from last year, but they’re still good. And, it’s at Morgan.”

Bridgeport, meanwhile, welcomes Newcomerstown to Frank Baxter Court.

“I feel like we’ve made some strides the last couple of games,” Harkness said. “Definitely, we can look at this and take some positives away. We don’t accept losing, but when you’re trying to get things turned around you want to look for some positives and I saw a bunch of them.”