Possessing fundamentally sound guards is a luxury for high school coaches.

Lehighton girls basketball coach Eric Gidney is experiencing that luxury first-hand this season.In Monday night's non-league win over Northern Lehigh, the Lady Indians' Skylynn Faust, Allie Rossino and Aubrey Blasiak exhibited why it's so nice to have capable backcourt players on the roster as the trio led the Tribe to a 64-50 win."It is a luxury and I think we realize how valuable the basketball is to us on the offensive end because we want it back on the defensive end so badly," Gidney said. "When we're humming and things are working well, you can see with our offense that everyone is moving and there are two or three options available for each of them."Early on, the Tribe's pressure defense forced the Lady Bulldogs into errors that led to easy baskets, allowing them to set the tone. In fact, Lehighton's strong guard play only committed four turnovers in the first half, in comparison to Northern Lehigh's nine."Too many turnovers early on in the game led to some easy points on fast breaks," Northern Lehigh head coach Tony Thomas said. "In the second half, we made the right adjustments, slowed down their sideline fast break, and forced them to play more half court offense."A 6-0 run by the Tribe out of halftime swelled their lead to 41-20 with roughly six minutes left in the third. However, the Bulldogs battled tough and trimmed the lead back to 13 (43-30) on a pair of Kaitlin Hoffman free throws with 3:24 still left in the third, .However, a Faust layup was followed by three straight fast breaks that resulted in Rossino's pair of layups and a short jumper by Jada Whiteman to make it 51-30 and allowed the Indians to cruise the rest of the way."I like how we have been being competitive and never quit out there," Thomas said. "We keep fighting and we will continue to keep fighting. It's great to see that from our younger kids."Lehighton held a 34-23 edge in rebounds in the game while committing 11 turnovers to Northern Lehigh's 17.SKY'S THE LIMIT ... Lehighton's Skylynn Faust was too tough to stop on the night, as she slashed to the basket repeatedly gaining an edge on her defender, and poured in a team-high 20 points in the contest. She also showed she can hit from the outside with a trey and a few jumpers as well.HANGING IN THE BALANCE ... The winners had three other players reach double digits in the contest as backing Faust were Blasiak with 16, and Rossino and Jenna Beck with 10 apiece. For the 'Dawgs, Kaitlin Hoffman proved a tough stop as she matched Faust with the game-high of 20 points on the night. Jill Olewine followed with 12, including three triples.DOWN THE ROAD ... Lehighton (2-0) has a stretch of home games to start the season and will host Panther Valley Thursday night. Meanwhile, for the Bulldogs (0-3), they are in the middle of a five games in seven days stretch, and will host Moravian Academy tonight.LEHIGHTONRossino 4-0-0-10, Whiteman 3-0-0-6, Blasiak 6-2-2-16, Frey 0-2-2-2, Beck 5-0-2-10, Drofich 0-0-0-0, Faust 9-1-2-20, Buchinsky 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 27-5-8-64.NORTHERN LEHIGHK. Hoffman 7-4-6-20, Knerr 1-0-0-2, Kemery 4-0-0-8, D. Hoffman 1-2-2-4, Ziegler 2-0-0-4, Olewine 3-3-9-12. TOTALS: 18-9-17-50.Lehighton 17 18 16 13 - 64Northern Lehigh 11 9 15 15 - 50Three pointers: L - Blasiak 2, Rossino 2, Faust 1; NL - Olewine 3, K. Hoffman 2.