Fulton head coach TJ Quick didn't want to bring up what happened last year.
Quick and her Lady Hornets advanced to the championship of the Montgomery County Invitational Tournament a year ago, only to succumb to the Hermann Lady Bearcats 62-47.
Fulton found itself opposite Hermann again for that same tournament title Friday night, yet Quick didn't want to rehash the 2013 outcome.
Lady Hornets junior forward NaShayla Brandt sure remembered, though.
"It was in the back of our minds and we just wanted to break a record because a Fulton Lady Hornet team has never took a first-place win at the Montgomery County Tournament," Brandt said.
Until late Friday night.
Brandt responded with 11 points, earning tournament most valuable player honors, and junior guard Sloane Totta knocked down a game-high 27 as fourth-seeded Fulton downed No. 2 Hermann 57-49 in the title game.
Brandt - who hit the dramatic game-winner at the buzzer in Wednesday night's 52-51 semifinal victory over No. 1 seed Clopton - averaged 12 points in three tournament games.
"I feel like if it wasn't for my team, I wouldn't have been able to play as good because they had my back and when I wasn't there to finish or when I had the ball, I could pass it to them," Brandt said.
Hermann exploited the height advantage that many teams have over the Lady Hornets to grab a 16-11 advantage after one quarter Friday night.
Fulton (3-0) countered from the perimeter, negating the Lady Bearcats' length with long-range shooting. Totta connected from 3-point range with 5 minutes, 28 seconds left in the second quarter to give the Lady Hornets their first lead at 18-16.
Hermann's early flurry was keyed by 6-foot-2 sophomore Emily Engemann, who tallied all nine of her points in the game's first 11 minutes. But Fulton eventually settled into its 1-2-2 defense, drawing two fouls on Engemann to send her to the bench with Fulton narrowly ahead 22-21 with 3:30 remaining in the half.
"You take her out of the game and that's huge for us," Quick said. "... We made a couple of in-game adjustments, got around a little bit quicker, got a little lower, you know it's hard for her to get down low.
"So we got a little bit lower and got a couple of quick fouls and got her to play hesitant."
With Engemann on the bench, Fulton continued to blister the Lady Bearcats from behind the arc. Junior guard Rachel Guse' - who produced 12 points on four 3-pointers - hit a triple to increase Fulton's advantage to 28-23 with 1:29 left in the half.
Totta's basket with :04 to go sent the Lady Hornets into halftime with a 30-23 edge.
Her hot hand carried over into the third quarter as she buried a 3-pointer with 7:31 to go, giving Fulton a double-digit advantage at 33-23. Totta - who joined Brandt on the all-tournament team - accounted for 11 of the Lady Hornets' 16 points in the third quarter.
"At any point in a game, she can take over a game," Quick said. "She's very good about knowing when her time is, she gets her teammates involved.
"She understood that Rachel was hot and kept feeding her (in the first half), (then in) the third quarter she got hot and her teammates got her the ball."
Fulton took a 46-30 lead into the fourth quarter, but Hermann used a 7-0 run to trim its deficit to 46-37 with 5:34 left.
The Lady Bearcats (3-1) never got closer than eight points the rest of the way, while the Lady Hornets exhibited composure in closing out the victory and Brandt credited that to maturity.
"... We stayed calm and if that was last year, we would have gotten antsy and fumbled (away the game)," Brant said. "But our experience with basketball has gotten better and our basketball IQ has gotten better, like I said, and we stayed calm and stayed together, just like coach Quick taught us to."
The Lady Hornets shot 49 percent as a team (22-of-45), including an 8-of-16 clip from 3-point range.
Freshman guard Brooke Grosse led the Lady Bearcats with 11 points, while senior guard Tesla Ruediger added 10. Hermann shot 50 percent from the field (20-of-40) and was 7-of-12 from behind the arc.
Sporting a tournament trophy and unblemished record is unchartered territory for Quick and her crew. As excited as Quick was for the Lady Hornets, she put Friday night's milestone in the same place as last year's title loss to Hermann - the rearview mirror.
"We're looking at it as we're 0-0 and we want to start the season off hot; that's the only way I know to go about it," Quick said. "These girls are hungry, they've been hungry for the last two years. The seniors have been hungry for the last four years to turn this program around and they're off to a great start."
Fulton plays its home opener against Blair Oaks at 6 p.m. Monday at Roger D. Davis Gymnasium.