TURNER CENTER – The Mt. Blue Cougars certainly have an arsenal of weapons at their disposal.

Thursday night they had them all on display.

The Cougars used their diverse offense and pressure defense to beat the Leavitt Hornets 69-24 in a KVAC girls’ basketball game.

Center Christine Mosher tossed in 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field to pace the Cougars (4-0), but their offense is anything but one dimensional. While lob passes down low to Mosher created many easy baskets, the Cougars also were successful from the outside with guards Amanda Laney and Amy Mansir combining for five field goals from 3-point territory.

“It’s nice for a change,” said Mt. Blue coach Jeannine Paradis on her team’s offensive options. “We’ve been struggling (in the past) with an inside or outside game. Now if they key on Christina she can kick it out.”

Three baskets by Mosher and a 3-pointer from the wing by Laney helped the Cougars open up an 11-0 lead within the first four minutes.

The Hornets (0-4) never recovered.

“We didn’t play well,” said Leavitt coach Tammy Anderson. “The girls got defeated early. We got down and they took advantage.”

The Cougars led 20-5 after the first quarter and they never let up. They outscored the Hornets 35-9 in the second half which included an 18-0 run. While the set offense was well executed, the real fun for the Cougars comes from their defensive pressure and transition game.

“We play together all year long,” said Laney who scored 13 points. “We click pretty well and have a lot of fun together. We like to get up the court fast instead of setting up our secondary offense.”

Everyone seemingly got into the transition game. That alone accounted for 18 points. The heavy defensive pressure set up most of those baskets.

“We really work hard on our defensive rotation,” said Paradis. “We work on different presses so if a team breaks one we’ll use a different one.

“Their press was tough and we’ve had trouble with the press all year long,” added Anderson.

Amy Chaisson led the Hornets with seven points while Bethany Burgess added five before fouling out late in the fourth quarter.