AUBURN – Despite posting a perfect record in the regular season last year, Edward Little had trouble putting opponents away early.

This year, the Red Eddies’ second and third-stringers are seeing significantly more playing time.

EL played suffocating defense and nearly held a short-handed Morse squad to single digits in the first half to cruise to a 69-32 win over Morse Saturday night.

“We’re trying to work harder than ever and put teams away as quick as we can,” said senior guard Ben Hartnett.

“We’re figuring what we can do offensively to do that,” EL coach Mike Adams said. “The big thing is, it comes from our defense. When we get after the ball, whether it’s fullcourt or halfcourt, that’s how we’re going to be able to put somebody away early.”

The Eddies shot 49 percent through the first three quarters. Morse, which had to combat EL’s 1-3-1 fullcourt pressure, shot just 22 percent. Kyle Philbrook led EL with 13 points, while Hartnett added 12 points and seven rebounds and Corey Therriault chipped in with 10 points.

The Shipbuilders were playing without 6-foot-6 junior Ryan Chaney, one of the top big men in the KVAC, due to academic ineligibility.

“We didn’t know that he wasn’t going to be able to play today,” Adams said. “That makes a big difference for Morse to have two kids at 6-6, and taking someone that scores as well as Chaney out of the mix makes them a totally different team.”

Nate Elwell, Morse’s other big man, scored a team-high eight points, but he and the Shipbuilders missed a number of layups and close-range shots in the early going. Hartnett, meanwhile, matched Morse with seven points in the first quarter as EL jumped out to a 16-7 lead.

The Eddies stepped on the gas pedal in the second quarter, and it didn’t hurt that the Shipbuilders missed their first seven shots from the field in the period. EL’s second unit kept the pressure on with a 3-pointer by Shane Ciriello (nine points) and hoops from James Philbrook and Matt Tribou that extended the cushion to 23 points.

“We’re really starting to shoot the ball now. That makes a big difference,” Adams said. “We said we wanted to push and obviously we really did that, in the second quarter especially.”

“They have a lot of bigger guys and athletic guys, so we were just trying to run and wear them down and take their legs away from their jump shots,” Hartnett said.

Morse went about 11 minutes without a field goal between the first and second quarters. Michael Walton’s jumper with 42 seconds left broke that drought and finally got the Shipbuilders into double digits at 32-11.

They went another 3:15 into the second half without a field goal as the Eddies built the lead to 30 with back-to-back 3s by Kyle Philbrook and Harnett.