The California Lady Pintos made it a game of 11 vs. 5, and it paid dividends.
California trailed by as many as eight points in the second half Saturday, but the Lady Pintos cashed in on their platoon system in a 49-40 victory against the South Callaway Lady Bulldogs in the River Region Credit Union Shootout at Fleming Fieldhouse.
"Whenever we're pressing the whole time and I'm running 11 girls at you, it's going to pay off in the end," California coach Bobby Sangster said.
The game's MVP was California's first player off the bench.
KaLynn Irey, a 5-foot-10 sophomore, energized the Lady Pintos with 14 points and seven rebounds.
"This was her kind of game," Sangster said. "Physical ballgame, letting them play a little bit, which is great. I love that. That's a great kind of game. That's what she really likes."
South Callaway led 19-14 at halftime and scored the first points in the second half on a Paige Clubb 3-pointer for the Lady Bulldogs' largest lead of the game.
But California answered with a 12-0 run in a span on two and a half minutes.
"We knew the first half that we had opportunities," Sangster said. "We didn't cash in on those opportunities, but we knew at halftime that it was right there."
Irey gave the Lady Pintos a 23-22 lead with an inside basket at the 4:49 mark.
Following a South Callaway turnover, Rylee Hees made the first of her two 3-pointers.
Irey and Hees led a California bench that scored 23 points.
"He can rotate in three or four players at a time and not really lose much at all," South Callaway coach Darren Humphrey said.
South Callaway's final lead came when Raeghan Meyer made a pair of free throws for a 31-30 edge with 1:50 left in the third quarter.
That was the start of a stretch for South Callaway that included a 7-of-10 clip at the free-throw line, but the Lady Bulldogs were 10-of-24 at the line for the game.
"We can't come in and throw up numbers from the free-throw line that we did today," Humphrey said. "We suffered there."
Tristan Porter, who finished with 14 points, scored the next five points for California and Makayla Schanzmeyer added a layup in the final seconds of the third quarter for a 37-31 lead.
The Lady Pintos led by as many as nine points three times in the fourth quarter.
South Callaway got within 43-40 with 1:28 left on a free throw, but the Lady Bulldogs went 0-for-3 from beyond the arc the rest of the way as Porter made 6-of-6 at the free-throw line to close it out.
"We were gonna have to do something to stimulate that offense," Humphrey said, "so if we can quickly knock down a 3 then we can get the timeout and kind of get our wits about us. But it was not meant to fall."
South Callaway went on a 9-2 run in the game's first three minutes, capped off by back-to-back baskets for DeLaney Horstman, who finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds.
Clubb, who added 14 points, made it 13-8 with a steal and layup at the 1:28 mark of the first quarter.
California scored the final five points of the opening quarter to pull within 13-12.
The Lady Pintos (4-2) host Southern Boone on Tuesday.
South Callaway (3-1) begins play in the Linn Tournament on Monday as it faces Capital City at 8 p.m.