Ryan Orshoski knows his Bellevue girls have plenty of room for improvement.

At the same time, he’s more than happy with the 64-45 win over Sandusky in the season opener Saturday night in Bellevue.

“It was baptism under fire for my freshmen and sophomores, but I was pleased we were able to withstand the Sandusky runs,” Orshoski said. “And every one played quality minutes which is something to be excited about.”

On the other hand, Nic Venerucci wasn’t quite as thrilled with the results.

“We couldn’t’ get into our pressure sets, and we couldn’t score,” the Sandusky coach said. “I don’t know if they were tight or nervous being the first game because we’ve never see that in our first four weeks.

“When you shoot poorly against a team that is running plays, you’re going to get beat.”

It wasn’t that the Lady Streaks shot that poorly, but they didn’t shoot enough.

Sandusky took as many shots (18) in the fourth quarter as it did in the first half, and made three more field goals over the final eight minutes than in the first 16.

“We kept telling them if they want to get out and run with the ball, they’ve got to check out,” Venerucci said. “We were giving them four, five and sometimes six chances to shoot and your not going to beat a good team like Bellevue like that.”

For the game, the Lady Streaks were 16-of-42 from the field, but were 0 for 9 from beyond the three-point arc, 13-of-30 from the foul line, and were out rebounded by a 51-33 margin.

“There were times when we threatened, but then we would shoot ourselves in the foot with a turnover or by missing a foul shot,” Venerucci said. “I told the kids one bad stretch led to numerous mistakes. We just could not bounce back from the second quarter.”

Sandusky trailed 14-11 at the end of the first quarter and trimmed the margin to 16-14 on a bucket and a free throw from Morgan Newell.

But the Lady Streaks only hit four free throws over the final 6:37 of the period and found themselves staring at a 34-18 deficit at the half.

Bellevue wasn’t exactly lighting it up either, hitting just 10-of-33 from the field. But a 28-14 edge on the boards over the first half gave the Lady Red the opportunity to build their 16-point lead with an 18-4 spurt.

“Sandusky is very improved and when they play to their potential, they are going to win some games,” Orshoski said. “I’m just happy we were able to withstand their run in the first quarter and play well in the second.”

The Lady streaks hit just 3 of 13 shots from the field in the third quarter to fall behind by a 48-26 margin, then found a rhythm to finish with a 19-point flourish in the fourth quarter.

Charles’sha Patrick led Sandusky in scoring with 15 points with Newell adding nine and Maurisha Brown grabbed nine rebounds.

Leslie Raifsnider led all scorers with 19 points and added eight rebounds, while Kalin Widman tossed in 12 points and Andrea Spears added a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds.

“I was very pleased with Kalin Widman, who came out as a freshman in her varsity game and scored 12 points, and we were very happy with the play of Andrea Spears,” Orshoski said. “I’m just happy with this start. We hung in there, didn’t get too low or too high and came out with a win.”

The night was a season-opening triple-header for the two teams with Bellevue making it a clean sweep. The Lady Red rolled to a 52-7 win in the JV game and took a 23-8 victory in the freshman opener.