South Medford senior Sara Schmerbach shoots over North Medford senior Olivia Boger for a basket in the second half Tuesday evening.

North Medford enjoyed a host of highlight moments Tuesday night against South Medford, but the one that has the girls ahead on the scoreboard at the end of the night will have to wait.

Still, the Black Tornado made good progress toward that goal in a girls basketball matchup that is hard to be considered a rivalry given the one-sided nature of the contest over the past decade.

Capitalizing on a less-than-engaged Panthers team that was coming off its first conference loss in six years — snapping a 51-game winning streak — North Medford was able to hang around and trail by only nine points with just over a minute to go in the third quarter before fifth-ranked South Medford showed its true colors and pulled away for a 62-39 home victory.

Tuesday’s Southwest Conference win marked a 14th straight for South Medford over the Black Tornado, but also saw North Medford make strides in the matchup. The Tornado (5-10, 2-1 SWC) had failed to reach the 30-point plateau in their 10 previous meetings with the Panthers (13-3, 3-1) before ending that streak with North’s highest point total in seven years during a crosstown clash.

“You’ve got to give it to them, they played hard all 32 minutes,” said first-year North Medford head coach Tiani Tunoa. “That was all you can ask for them. I just told them to go out there and compete and make a statement as much as possible.”

“We’re going to get back into it and learn from this and hopefully come back and make it a little bit more interesting, for sure,” she added. “I’m super proud of them for how they played tonight.”

The mood was a bit more ho-hum on the other end of the spectrum, with the Panthers certainly pleased to keep up their control of North Medford but also well aware that they weren’t at their best.

“It’s super concerning,” said South Medford head coach Tom Cole. “I don’t think we brought our best effort, and it’s a reminder that teams aren’t just going to allow you to be a lesser version of yourself and you’re gonna expect that they’re just going to cooperate. Credit to North, they kept the game relevant, and we just couldn’t get over a bit of a fog, it feels like, that kind of permeated through each quarter. There were moments where you’d see life and then there were the other moments.”

South Medford junior Dyllyn Howell paved the way for her team with 23 points, six rebounds and four steals, while Mayen Akpan contributed 13 points, seven rebounds and two assists and Sara Schmerbach fought off a nagging groin injury to net 10 points.

Howell highlighted a 24-10 closing run to the contest with 3-pointers from the same spot at the top of the key on three consecutive possessions in the fourth quarter. The junior, who knocked down five 3-pointers overall, had 11 points overall in the fourth quarter and was a steady contributor with her effort to try and spark the Panthers.

“Our energy was really low at the beginning,” said Howell. “We weren’t ourselves, but I feel like at the end we definitely picked it up.”

“I was just trying to push the pace and get our energy up and hopefully that other people just relied off of me and got their energy up because of me,” she added. “I was just trying to make a presence and help in any way I could.”

Malia Taulani also pulled in six rebounds to go with four assists off the bench for South Medford, while Jordan Barlow had seven points and four assists and Payton Andersen grabbed five boards.

For North Medford, senior guards Sophia West and Olivia Boger combined for 18 points, and the Black Tornado got seven points apiece from Caileigh Raines and Abigail Taylor. Boger had six rebounds and two steals, Raines chipped in with four steals and three boards and Taylor added three assists and two steals.

South Medford, however, won the battle of the boards 37-23, and North Medford committed 28 turnovers.

“Turnovers and rebounds hurt us on both ends of the floor,” said Tunoa. “If we can take care of some of that, I think it would’ve been a lot closer of a margin, for sure.”

After serving as Cole’s assistant coach last season, Tunoa’s knowledge of the Panthers’ scheme and players in those roles seemed to help boost the Black Tornado in terms of its efficiency in wading through South Medford’s defensive tendencies.

“From a personnel standpoint, I did feel familiarity,” said the North coach in prepping her players. “Obviously, I let them know that they’re a good team and each one of those players there (at South) are super strong and athletic and talented and we have to be able to respect those things if we want to be competitive with them.”

South Medford, however, still seemed to be experiencing some lingering effects from last Friday’s 56-48 loss to No. 4-ranked Willamette in Eugene.

“I know Friday was an emotional game and there were a lot of variables that made Friday night difficult and the loss hard,” said Cole, “but we’ve got a lot of season left. We have to mature.”

NORTH MEDFORD (39): Brownlee 0, Smalley 2, West 10, Taylor 7, Boger 8, Raines 7, Canton 0, Verduzco 0, Lane 5, Moolio 0. Totals: 16-40 3-9 39.

SOUTH MEDFORD (62): Richardson 2, Taulani 0, Warberg 5, Imperial-Viray 0, Schmerbach 10, Barlow 7, Howell 23, Akpan 13, Andersen 2. Totals: 26-69 4-9 62.

North Medford 12 6 11 10 — 39

South Medford 18 12 12 20 — 62

3-point goals — North Medford 4-14 (Taylor 2, Raines 1, Lane 1), South Medford 6-20 (Howell 5, Warberg 1).