Late January gets to be a little bit of a grind, in terms of high school basketball.

Still, the No. 1 Mount Vernon girls’ basketball team has survived and thrived, and Tuesday, Jan. 28, they handled West Delaware 67-40 in Mount Vernon.

“The season starts feeling a little long,” Mount Vernon coach Nathan Sanderson said. “You can’t see the postseason pairings yet. It is the second time through the schedule, and teams learned from the first game, and are trying to take thing away.”

Add to that some illness and injury — the Mustangs played without their starting point guard one game, and without their starting center in another, the previous week.

“We have so many great players,” senior Sydney Huber said. “We are learning to adjust on the fly. And I think that was good. We got to work on different things.”

Everyone was back to face the Hawks. Freshman Savanna Wright looked recovered, scoring a team-high 18 points, including four 3-pointers. Senior post Chloe Meester added 14 points and nine rebounds, and Huber had 12 points.

“Savanna is just so hard to stay in front of,” Sanderson said. “We set some screens for her up top, but she didn’t really need it.”

When these teams played in December, the Mustangs got out to 26-7 lead after one quarter. The Hawks made them work a little harder this go-round.

It was tied 14-14 near the end of the first quarter before Wright hit two of her 3-pointers, and Meester added a bucket in the paint during an 8-0 run.

Then, right before half, Huber and Wright made shot attacking the basket to put Mount Vernon up 35-24 at intermission.

“We went to zone more in the second half, and that really helped us slow down (Brooke) Krogmann,” Huber said. “We know she’s their main option, all the time, so we just had to do our best to contain her.”

The six-foot post finished with a game-high 22 points and 11 rebounds for West Delaware.

“We emphasized keeping the ball out of Krogmann’s hands,” Sanderson said. “She still scored 22. We weren’t going to shut her out, but we wanted to make her work.”

The zone seemed to do its job, as the Mustangs won the third quarter, 16-7. They led by 20, 51-31, going into the final quarter.

“We more or less got the same margin (as the first game),” Sanderson said. “We just took a different path.”

Mount Vernon took apart No. 14 Center Point-Urbana, 61-38, on Friday, Jan. 31, in Center Point. The game started at 9 p.m., due to the boys playing triple-overtime.

With Meester in early foul trouble, the Mustangs leaned on their zone defense again. Up 35-23 at half, Mount Vernon won the fourth quarter, 13-6.

“We were finally able to get our transition game on-track, scoring on a number of beautiful passing sequences,” Sanderson said.

Meester finished with 20 points and Huber added 17 points.

The win earned the Mustangs a share of the WaMaC East Division title.

Mount Vernon (17-1) has three regular-season games left. They traveled to Independence on Monday, Feb. 3, and host Marion for Senior Night on Friday, Jan. 7.

Then they get a little razzle-dazzle by playing No. 12 (4A) Clear Creek Amana in Xtream Arena on Tuesday, Feb. 11.

“We’re in a really good spot right now,” Huber said. “Teams are coming back at us with stronger game plans. It is not going to be as easy as last time.”

West Delaware (40) – Norah Peyton 3-10 2-2 8, Susie Funke 1-8 0-0 2, Len Petlon 0-2 0-0 0, Brooke Krogmann 8-13 4-6 22, Josie McMahon 1-7 0-0 3, Sofia Schulte 0-4 0-0 0, Vedah Langel 2-5 0-0 5, Karly Ogden 0-0 0-0 0, Kennedy Kolbet 0-0 0-0 0, Abbigail Stoffel 0-1 0-0 0, Natalie Schulze 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 15-52 6-8 40.

Mount Vernon (67) – Savanna Wright 7-11 0-0 18, Taylor Franck 3-9 0-0 6, Chloe Meester 7-15 0-0 14, Courtney Franck 3-8 2-3 8, Sydney Huber 4-11 4-4 12, Rylee Rasmussen 0-2 0-0 0, Eryn Jackson 2-4 0-0 5, Quinn Pershing 0-0 0-0 0, Alivia Truitt 0-2 0-0 0, Lucy Wischmeyer 1-1 0-0 2, Ella Wilson 0-0 0-0 0, Sophia Meester 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 28-64 6-7 67.

West Delaware 14 10 7 9 — 40

Mount Vernon 22 13 16 16 — 67

3-point goals – WD 4-18 (Peyton 0-3, Funke 0-3, Krogmann 2-3, McMahon 1-3, Schulte 0-2, Langel 1-4), MV 5-15 (Wright 4-7, T.Franck 0-2, Huber 0-3, Jackson 1-3). Rebounds – WD 33 (Krogmann 11), MV 39 (C.Meester 9, C.Franck 8, Huber 8). Turnovers – WD 15, MV 6. Total fouls – WD 10, MV 6