Between a busy early December regular-season schedule, an invitational, finals and Christmas, Valley Christian's girls basketball team has visited the practice floor sparingly this month. So it didn't come as a surprise to coach Scott Timmer his team was a little rusty in their first game after the holiday. But rusty for Valley Christian isn't rusty like it might be for some teams.

A double-digit, first-quarter lead paved the way for Valley Christian's 69-48 victory over St. Mary's in the opening game of the 15th annual Valley Christiani Christmas Tournament at Valley Christian.

"We've practiced only three times this month", Timmer said.  "A lot of that is on me. I give them the week of finals off because they want to concentrate on getting good grades. I gave another week off before the holiday. We weren't quite in synch. Our shooting was off a little, and we had more turnovers than we're used to. We'll need to fix that down the line."

Sophomore guard Anna Gorman fueled a 21-11 first-quarter lead with 11 of her 15 points. Junior Megan Timmer picked up leading the offense in the second quarter. After not scoring in the first quarter, Timmer tallied nine points in the second and finished with a game-high 17. Valley Christian (9-1) extended its lead to 44-20 at the break. The Lady Trojans finished with a couple more turnovers than St. Mary's (26-24), but mad up for that with better shooting, inlcuding nine threes and 19-of-23 shooting from the free-throw line. Katilyn Bellerson (11) and Angie Andreas (10) also scored in double figures for Valley Christian.

St. Mary's (4-4) was led by Joyce Jordan with 15 points while Daisy Altamirano chipped in with 10. St. Mary's did most of its scoring inside. The Lady Knights didn't attempt nearly as many threes as Valley, but connected on just two.

The tournament continued through late Monday with the following records accrued by teams in pool play: White Pool -- Valley Christian (2-0), Window Rock (2-0), Palos Verde (CA) (1-1), St. Mary's (0-2), Buckeye (0-2). Blue Pool -- Maricopa (2-0), Holbrook (1-1), Poston Butte (1-1), Snowflake (1-1), Tempe (0-2). 

Pool play concludes on Tuesday with games all day beginning at 9 a.m. On Wednesday the tourney concludes with placement games matching teams' finish from standings in the five-team pools. The final is set for Wednesday at 3:20. All games are at Valley Christian HS.