Crater's Addi Dippel shoots a 3-pointer during Friday's first half against Springfield in Central Point.

For all the blowout victories that Crater has racked up this girls basketball season — and there have been plenty — last Friday’s 53-47 win over visiting Springfield may have been twice as meaningful.

The Class 5A top-ranked Comets certainly weren’t at their best, with the No. 6 Millers having a lot to do with that, and yet they were able to get the job done in a contest that promised to be electric but instead kind of clunked its way to the end in Central Point.

Neither team shot particularly well in a physical battle, with the Comets connecting on 29.5% of their shots (18-for-61) and Springfield ringing in at 31% (14-for-45) — numbers that included a combined 11-for-43 showing from 3-point range (26%).

Crater built a 29-16 lead by halftime and carried a 14-point advantage into the fourth quarter before things grew a little dicey when Springfield was able to pull within six points with 2 ½ minutes remaining.

Still, a ninth straight win by the Comets was in the cards as they pulled it all together to offset anything the Millers put together down the stretch in the battle of Midwestern League leaders.

“We came out in the beginning of the game really amped up,” said Crater head coach Amber Lease, “and then we kinda got punched in the mouth a little bit, which was good for our kids because they haven’t really gotten to experience that too much.”

“It was good for our kids to just push through and bounce back,” she added. “I think the biggest thing for us is continuing to be mentally tough and just finishing strong.”

Both of those traits came in the form of senior Lydia Traore on Friday night, with the 6-foot-4 post scoring maybe the biggest basket of the night for the Comets with her putback following a wayward 3-point attempt by Jazmine Fernandez with 1:45 remaining. It was one of only two Crater field goals in the final quarter — both by Traore — and snapped a 9-2 run by Springfield that had cut the Comets’ lead to 48-42.

“I feel like mentally just being really tough and physically being really strong helped us tonight,” said Traore. “It’s hard because all of the teams that we play, we’re blowing them out by a lot of points and stuff, so just making ourselves better at practice every day and trying to become a better team for games like these has been important so we can prepare for state.”

Traore finished with 15 points, 16 rebounds and four blocked shots for Crater (18-1, 6-0 MWL), which had outscored its opponents on average by 44 points in the previous seven games.

“Having her on the floor is just a completely different look for us,” said Lease. “Her length and ability to just go get the ball is very impressive, and she just continues to get better at that.”

“That’s a luxury not a lot of teams have,” added the first-year head coach. “We are very grateful for Lydia, she continues to impress me every day. She continues to get stronger, and she continues to finish around the rim better by getting her eyes up.”

Springfield (12-6, 5-1) was able to counter in transition with a basket by freshman Lia Jones with 1:05 to play, and then it became a free throw contest that saw each team go 3-for-4 from the charity stripe in the final minute. Addison Dippel converted two of those foul shots for Crater, and Alexa Gugliotta went 1-for-2 with 17 seconds to play.

Gugliotta had a very active game overall, finishing with seven points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals as she teamed with Traore to create second-chance opportunities. The duo also worked well in tandem with their passing, breaking down Springfield’s zone defense with quick high-low passing and cuts to the basket.

“Passing the ball is really important for me,” said Traore, who operated among a crowd in the paint all night. “I’ll have a lot of girls on me so I’m just making sure I can see my teammates and who’s open, and then when the time comes for me to score then I can score. Making sure everyone touches the ball tonight was really important.”

Junior guard Taylor Young drained three of Crater’s five 3-pointers against the pesky Millers defense and finished with 11 of her 16 points in the first half. Young also pulled in four rebounds to go with two assists, while Dippel finished with seven points and Sage Winslow supplied five points and seven rebounds.

The 53 points scored by Crater matched a season low, with the other coming in a 53-51 win over Class 6A Beaverton at the POA Holiday Classic on Dec. 30.

“I think we’re just such a fast-paced team and a transition team where half of the time our points are passing the ball ahead in transition, and today we just had a different vibe,” said Traore. “They were scoring so you can’t just get the ball out and we can’t get as many steals, so that definitely was a change. We had to work on a lot of our plays and run through the clock and take good shots.”

Lease agreed, noting that Friday’s experience will benefit the Comets moving forward.

“This was really good for our kids, especially in a league that sometimes you get to play a lot of bodies,” said the coach. “Tonight we really shortened the bench up a little bit and I think it’s good for our girls to get that experience. I think it’s good for them to see somebody that sits in a zone a little bit, too, where you have to create when we’re used to just reading and reacting and creating that way. Tonight, we had to do a little bit more creating ourselves.”

Springfield sophomore Sailor Hall scored 10 of her game-high 18 points in the fourth quarter to go with six rebounds, and the Millers got nine points and three assists from Ikunaday Filipe and seven rebounds and four assists from Darissa Romero-Ah Sam.

The Comets, who finished runner-up in last year’s Class 5A state championships, have not lost to an Oregon team in 18 straight contests. Their lone loss this season came against St. Joseph’s of California on Dec. 28, 78-69.

“A win is a win so at the end of the day it’s about making sure that we can look ahead and not focus on the past,” Traore said of Friday’s showing. “It wasn’t even like our best game — I feel like we have so much more in us — so facing adversity and having good teams play us like that, it’s all just about making sure we’re working hard and getting better for state.”