AUGUSTA — You’ve probably heard the shopworn cliche about how the first round of the playoffs is always the toughest. If that’s the case, the unbeaten Valley girls basketball team passed the test Monday afternoon.

Madeline Hill scored 26 points and Brianna Mills pulled down 10 rebounds — five in the fourth quarter — as top-seeded Valley defeated  No. 8 Telstar 55-33 in the Class D South quarterfinals at the Augusta Civic Center. The game was tight early, as the Cavaliers led only 22-20 at halftime.

Valley (19-0) will face No. 5 Greenville in the semifinals at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday back at the Civic Center. The Cavaliers won their lone regular-season meeting, 60-13 on Jan. 9.

Telstar (7-12) may play in Class D, but the Rebels’ regular-season schedule was loaded with Class B and C schools, which made their record look rather deceiving. Telstar went 3-14 in Class C last season.

“It was a good effort against a Class C team,” Valley coach Gordon Hartwell said. “We knew they were going to be tough, but I expected to make a few more shots ourselves.” 

Telstar also had a pair of 6-footers in its starting lineup, including 1,000-point scorer Morgan Zetts, who finished with 17 points, including all nine of her team’s first-quarter points as the Rebels trailed 10-9 after the first quarter. Once Valley began to double-team her, however, the senior scored only eight points the rest of the way, none in the fourth quarter.

“We thought we could wear her down a little bit as time went on,” Hartwell said. “We knew she was going to score, because she always scores, but I figured we could make her run up and down the court and make her play defense.”

Hartwell added that after Telstar used Zetts to defend Hill — a 1,000-point scorer herself — that opened up opportunities for Mills and Rylee Clark (eight points).

Zetts also had nine rebounds, while teammate Karen Marshall scored 11 points.

The first half was neck-and-neck. After a Zetts free throw gave Telstar a 13-10 lead early in the second, Valley went on a 12-0 run — including six points from Hill — to take a 22-13 advantage. But Telstar responded with a 7-0 run of its own, capped by a Marshall 3-pointer, to close the deficit to 22-20 at halftime. 

“We practiced all week trying to slow the team down, because we knew they were a fast-break team,” Telstar coach Alec Newell said. “We had a couple different strategies to try to slow them down, but I thought we did a great job of that in the first half.

“We knew we were the eighth seed, and we hopefully were going to be tough out for somebody, and that was certainly our goal coming in.” 

In the third quarter, Marshall’s third 3-pointer pulled Telstar to within 30-28, but Valley went on an 11-1 run and outscored the Rebels 25-5 the rest of there way. 

“Our defense was a lot better in the second half, then we picked it up offensively,” Hill said. “In the first half, defensively, we let them a get a whole bunch of shots we really should have let them get off.” 

Hill scored seven straight points over the third and fourth quarters, including a pair of 3-pointers, while Mills grabbed every loose ball in her vicinity and added four fourth-quarter points of her own. Valley ended with a 34-30 rebounding advantage.

“She’s a horse under there rebounding-wise,” Hartwell said of Mills. “We knew we had to win the battle on the rebounds, because honestly that’s where the game was. They were a little bit bigger than us, but I think Rylee and Bri and Surata Wright (seven rebounds) stepped up at the post.”

After going 5-for-14 from the free-throw line through 3 1/2 quarters, Valley went 8-for-8 down the stretch, including a 6-for-6 effort from Hill following a 2-for-6 start.

“We practice free throws a lot at practice,” Hill said. “I struggled with foul shots obviously in the first half, but in the second half I thought I picked it up.” 

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