Photo/JOE CATULLO Martins Ferry’s Richella Spielvogel (5) shoots over Steubenville’s Myla Gulan on Monday night.

STEUBENVILLE — Martins Ferry shot lights out in the first half, struggled through the third quarter but held Steubenville to a single fourth-quarter point in a 57-36 win Monday night inside the Crimson Center.

The Purple Riders made eight 3-pointers in the first half and used full-court pressure defense to stifle the Big Red offense in racing out to 21-12 and 40-19 leads at the conclusion of the first two quarters.

Big Red coach Jeff Lombardo urged his charges to get more aggressive on defense at halftime. They held the Purple Riders to just six points, while whittling the lead down to 46-35 heading into the fourth quarter.

“At halftime, we just talked about playing as if the score was 0-0 and just go out and play better,” Lombardo said. “We said chip into that lead, forget about the score and just try to win the third quarter, and I thought our girls looked completely different in the second half.

“We won that third quarter, I thought, pretty well. We did a good job against that pressure, and our man-to-man defense was really good. We just missed some shots in the fourth quarter. Martins Ferry is a really well-coached team with a lot of seniors and, when they stretched the lead back out, we had to come out and really guard, which isn’t what we like to do.”

There wasn’t a lot of scoring in the final stanza. Martins Ferry senior Rebecca Spielvogel opened the frame with a layup off a nifty feed from sophomore Maria Clark to open the scoring with 7:38 on the clock. She made the second field goal of the period more than four minutes later with 3:05 left in the game. When Shayla Schuster drove to the basket and put in a a layup at the 2:15 mark, the Purple Riders led, 52-35.

Eleven seconds later, freshman Kylie Maxwell made the first of two free throws for Big Red’s only point of the quarter. Schuster made another layup and later a foul shot. Eve Agnew finished the scoring with 10 seconds left in the game.

“We have some senior guards that can apply pressure,” Martins Ferry coach Dave Reasbeck said. “We’re pretty good when we’re doing that. When we’re back on our heels like we were in the third quarter, we’re not very good. But, we’re tough to beat when we make eight 3s in a half.

“I had a bad feeling at halftime because Steubenville is Steubenville. I had a feeling they were going to bring it, and they did. But, that third quarter was good for us because we weathered their aggressiveness and responded in the fourth quarter, got aggressive again and played pretty well at the end.”

Schuster and Spielvogel each scored 13 points and pulled down seven rebounds to pace the Purple Rider offense. Senior Jaden Stalder opened the game with a 3 and drained two more in the first half. Schuster had two 3s and so did Sidne Sidon. Maria Clark also added a trey.

“We didn’t do a very good job in the first half,” said Lombardo, whose club now is 11-6. “We were a little bit slow-footed. They got open shots, and they hit them. We had some missed assignments, too. Sometimes you miss assignments and teams don’t shoot it that well. They were on fire in the first half.

“Seems like visiting teams that come into our gym — boys and girls — have their best shooting nights here. I’m going to have to tighten up those rims.”

Big Red senior Madison Fields, who battled Spielvogel in the paint all game, scored 12 points. Maxwell followed with nine. Maxwell and Elexis Martin each had six rebounds.