On Thursday night, the Williston girls basketball team struggled early against host Eastside, but so did the Lady Rams, leading to just a 4-4 score at the end of the first quarter.

The Lady Red Devils, who were playing without guards Taylor Powers and Janiyah Span, found their rhythm in the second quarter.

Seven different players scored as part of a 22-point second quarter as Williston defeated Eastside, 58-40, to improve to 8-1 on the season.

First-year Williston coach Willie Powers II said the intensity on defense was the difference for the turnaround after a slow start in the opening quarter.

“I mean our defense was terrible tonight, but like I told them we practiced once this week and they came out lackadaisical and you can’t do that if you want to be a great team,” Powers said. “You’ve got to play great basketball every quarter so we’re working on trying to get ourselves in a position where every night we expect to be great at what we do.”

Freshman Kaelynn Brown scored six of her team-high 13 points in the second quarter to give Williston a 26-16 lead at the half.

She knocked down a 3-pointer from the left wing with 6:23 to play in the half to give the Lady Red Devils a 7-6 lead after Eastside’s Jazmine Manning had given Eastside a 6-4 lead a little over a minute into the quarter.

Later in the quarter, Brown converted an and-one to give Williston its largest lead of the half at 17-10 with 2:36 to play in the second quarter.

“Kaelynn can do it all,” Powers said. “It’s all up to her and what she wants to do but she’s one of those players that can put the ball in the basket, can pass, can dribble, can play the 4, can play the 5, so very versatile,” Powers said.

A layup by Eastside senior Akira Martin just eight seconds into the second half cut it to single digits at 27-18.

However, Williston went on a 7-0 run on a bucket by sophomore shooting guard Delecia Dallas and a top-of-the-key 3-pointer by Dallas for a 32-18 lead.

A layup by freshman point guard Kierce Solomon gave Williston its largest lead at 34-18 with 6:58 to play in the third quarter.

Eastside quickly answered on an and-one by senior Trinity Cooper to cut the lead to 13 at 34-21.

Cooper did her best to keep the Lady Rams in it in the third quarter, scoring eight of her team-high 13 points.

She made a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 1:15 to play in the quarter to cut it to 12 at 41-29 and her runner in the lane made it a 10-point game, 41-31, at the end of the quarter.

“Trin is our glue, our navigation,” said second-year Eastside coach Lonna Turner. “I definitely applaud her tonight for keeping things together when things got rocky, when coach did get emotional, because they usually don’t see me like that. She held it together for us.”

Williston went on another run, outscoring Eastside 9-0 to start the fourth quarter and building a 50-31 lead with 5:29 to play.

A 3-ball by Brown ended a 4-0 Eastside run and extended the lead back to 18 at 53-35 with 3:56 remaining.

Martin added 10 points for Eastside, which dropped to 3-4 on the season.

“Seven games in they’re playing good,” Turner said. “We’re young [two seniors and two juniors]. They’ve got a lot of heart. It’s a fight every night with our lineup, just trying to figure out who is going to be what. Our freshmen are hungry for the ball…everybody is trying to fight to get that floor time.”

Dallas also had 10 for Williston, which had 10 different players score in the game.

“Depth wins ball games because you never know who is going to be injured, you never know who is going to be in foul trouble,” Powers said. “It’s all a part of it.”

Williston is back in action against Wekiva (Apopka) next Thursday at the Florida Prospects tournament in Orlando, while Eastside hosts Orange Park at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday.

“Every night we’re just trying to get better for the end of the year,” Powers said. “I don’t care about my record…that’s the difference between winning games and winning championships. I want to win championships, I don’t want to win games, so that’s why we just try to play the best teams that we can get, to make us better every night.”