BOSTON – A stout defense and a dominant middle of the game led Cathedral to a convincing girls basketball win at home against Catholic Central League rival St. Mary’s of Lynn on Friday night.

A 17-2 run to end the second into the start of the third turned a deficit into a 13-point lead as the No. 2 Panthers never looked back against the top-ranked Spartans in a 65-46 victory.

“It’s a battle of attrition,” said Panthers’ coach Clinton Lassiter. “We run, run, run. We’ve had a lot of kids out sick this week, so players are more gassed than normal. We caused havoc and we just tried to crush it. Bring out their tendencies and take them away.”

During that run, junior Hijjah Allen-Paisley netted 10 of her 15 points, with a pair of steals and a triple to go from down 22-20 to up 37-24 early in the third.

The Cathedral (6-1) defense came up with 26 turnovers throughout the contest that led to plenty of opportunities for the offense as sophomore Keyona Raines came up with five of the team’s 15 steals.

“For the team, it feels good to know that we are playing good defense as a team,” Raines said about capitalizing on the turnovers on the offensive side. “When we’re aggressive, that’s easier for us to actually get more points because it’s mostly about defense.”

Raines finished with a game-high 19 points as well.

For St. Mary’s (8-1), junior Reese Matela scored a game-high 22 points as Cathedral did a great job covering Bella Owumi (two points) throughout the contest.

“(St. Mary’s) is built off of (Owumi), who is an amazing, amazing player, so if you can disrupt their point guard, which is going to disrupt the offense,” Lassiter said about being able to shut her down. “Everything’s out of sync (on offense) and again lean on their tendencies (to shut down).”

Cathedral came out strong in the first and led 10-5 before St. Mary’s made it a 15-11 contest after one. The teams traded leads and tied early in the second before the Panthers’ run to go up by 30-24 at the half.

After the 7-0 run to start the third, Cathedral got up as many as 15 before St. Mary’s ended the third on a 10-4 run to make it a 46-37 deficit.

In the fourth the Spartans made it a seven-point game a couple times, but a 14-2 run for Cathedral put the game away late.