Jamestown’s Lauren Tracy closely guards Frontier’s Riley McGloin during Tuesday’s Erie County Interscholastic Conference Division 1 girls basketball game at McElrath Gymnasium. P-J photo by Cameron Hurst

Above all else, Rick Mihalik wanted his Frontier girls basketball team to do one thing in Tuesday evening’s Erie County Interscholastic Conference Division 1 road matchup against Jamestown: finish.

“We haven’t really been able to close games and finish the way that I would have liked to so far this season,” the Falcons head coach explained. “We just did a nice job of finishing tonight.”

Finishing was an understatement as the Falcons (4-6, 3-1 ECIC I) held the Lady Red Raiders (7-4, 3-2 ECIC I) to just five points in the fourth quarter to finish off a 47-37 victory at McElrath Gymnasium.

“It was a disappointing game, overall,” said Jamestown coach Tim Anderson, whose team held a six-point lead at halftime. “If we would have given the effort that I thought was necessary to win this game, then I think we could have won the game. They just out-toughed us and they just played harder.”

The Red Raiders, coming off an eight-day layoff since their last contest at Chautauqua Lake, showed promise in the first two periods as freshman Marley Drake drained three 3-pointers in the first half to add 11 of her team-high 15 points to give Jamestown a 22-16 lead heading into the locker room.

“We didn’t play our best basketball coming in the first half and we were up six,” Anderson said. “In the second half, we talked about having the killer instinct to jump on a team in that first three minutes of the half, and then we did the complete opposite.”

Six straight points to start the half tied the game, and consecutive points from Tricia Curran, who finished with a game-high 17 points, and Paris Izzo, who finished with 9, gave Frontier its first lead since the first quarter, with 4:09 left in the third.

The Red Raiders — led by Drake and sophomore Annika Spitzer — mustered a comeback to finish the period with a 32-31 lead, but a 10-0 run by the Falcons over the first six minutes of the fourth quarter gave them control of the game for good.

“We got deflated from there,” Anderson added.

Mihalick noted that his team’s approach on Drake, who was scoreless in the fourth quarter, made the biggest difference in crunch time.

“(Drake) is really tough and she took advantage of any space we gave her in the first half,” he said. “In the second half, we did a better job of that. That was the game plan going in and that helped our control in the fourth quarter.”

Still, the visiting coach was impressed with the freshman’s skill set.

“In the first half, the little space that we did give her, she’s still able to get the shot up,” he said. “The ball is not even touching the rim. That was a little frustrating. The shots are going in and we’re giving her that little bit of space. Our kids did a nice job of making some adjustments and recognizing that we couldn’t give her that much space. ”

“They denied (Drake) a little bit more,” Anderson said of the defensive approach on the freshman. “From the stuff that we run, we just need to do a better job of moving off of her and she needs to do a better job of moving away from the ball. They denied her, but she just needs to get used to that. Teams are going to key in on her and we still have to run our stuff.”

“We just have to execute what we’re trying to do,” he added. “We’ll get better at that. We’re young. We’re halfway through the season. We just have to turn the corner and understand some of the things that we’re trying to execute and just apply it.”

NOTES: Mickia Freeney and Jill Kindberg each added 9 points and Kindberg led the team in rebounds with seven. … Curran led the Falcons with eight rebounds and dished out a team-high seven assists. … The Jamestown coaching staff participated in the Coaches vs. Cancer Suits and Sneakers Fundraising Campaign to support research for childhood cancer during Tuesday night’s home.

FRONTIER (47)

Lacki 0 0 0, Zglinicki 0 0 0, Kelly 0 0 0, Curran 6 5 17, Gerken 2 0 4, Brown 1 0 3, Izzo 3 1 9, Doyle 3 0 6, McGloin 2 4 8. 17 10 47.

JAMESTOWN (37)

Drake 5 2 15, Kindberg 3 3 9, Tracy 1 0 2, Freeney 4 0 9, Holdridge 0 0 0, Spitzer 1 0 2, Graham 0 0 0, Karash 0 0 0. 14 5 37.

3-point field goals: Drake 3, Freeney, Brown, Izzo 2

Frontier 9 7 15 16 — 47

Jamestown 11 11 10 5 — 37

Jayvees: Jamestown 48, Frontier 45