Well there goes the learning curve.

Before the season started the Hood River Valley girls basketball team was talking about learning and developing.

Now, after a convincing 39-27 win over the St. Mary’s Blues on Saturday, the talk is about what they have to do to make state.

“Getting to state has actually become a goal now,” Rachael Mallon said after the Eagles dominated the final three quarters to beat the Blues.

Hood River Valley had last played 10 days prior and was soundly beaten by the Central Catholic Rams.

What did the Eagles work to change during their time off?

“Our defense,” Rachel Perry said. “Hukari has been pounding that it into us – defense, defense, defense.”

The Eagles’ defense made life tough for the Blues all night, and forced St. Mary’s to turn the ball over numerous times. When the Blues were able to get an open shot, more often than not, they missed.

“We got a lot of shots that we wanted but none of them went in,” St. Mary’s coach Art Rojas said. “I don’t know what our percentage was, but it wasn’t very good.”

In addition to making the Blues work for every point, the Eagles also consistently executed on offense for the whole game.

Earlier in the season the Eagles displayed a tendency to panic against the press. Not so against the Blues.

More often than not, the Eagles broke the St. Mary’s pressure, leading to fast break opportunities, and a chance for HRV to establish its offense.

“We knew they were going to pressure us,” Eagles coach Phil Hukari said. “So we went high post-low post and our post game really helped us.”

Perry and Rachael Mallon were the two main recipients of the that strategy, with Mallon picking up seven points and Perry finishing with four points and several key offensive rebounds

After the Eagles trailed 7-6 midway through the first quarter, they proceeded to outscore the Blues 15-6 the rest of the half, and would never trail in the game again.

The Eagles took a 21-13 lead to the break and the only possession that they did not seem ready for was their last of the half, when they held the ball too long before passing it to Jody Kunigal, whose three-point attempt at the buzzer was off.

At the start of the second half, St. Mary’s closed within three points when the Eagles lost track of center Emily Cookson, St. Mary’s tallest player, under the basket, and then turned over an inbounds pass for another easy basket.

However, that was as close as the Blues would get the rest of the way.

Meagan Clark hit a three-pointer on the Eagles’ next possession to give HRV the momentum back, and the Eagles would go on to build the lead to as much as 14 at one point before taking the 12-point win.

With the Eagles currently sitting one game back of the fifth playoff spot in the Mount Hood Conference, Hukari said his team is going to keep taking things one game at a time, but that the rest of the conference shouldn’t expect the Eagles to go quietly down the stretch.

“We don’t know any better,” he said.

The Eagles are scheduled to host Barlow on Thursday.