BELCHERTOWN — The visiting Hampshire girls basketball team continued to hang around as it trailed Belchertown by 10 in the third quarter – looking to make a push to really put pressure on the Orioles.

But the Raiders lost Belchertown star Chloe LaRoche in transition as she flared out to the 3-point line and received a pass that she caught in rhythm. LaRoche, in one fluid motion, set her feet and hoisted the long ball. She buried the shot to put the Orioles ahead 13 and snatch momentum back in the hosts’ favor.

Belchertown would keep its advantage around a baker’s dozen the rest of the way and defended its home floor, beating Hampshire 45-31 on Tuesday night.

“We’ve had situations this year where we’ve gotten ourselves a lead and we’ve struggled to finish,” Belchertown head coach Jason Woodcock said. “I thought they did a good job tonight slowly building on our lead.”

For the first time all season, Woodcock and the Orioles decided not to use a full-court press. Coming into Tuesday, they knew that Hampshire has Shayne Moynahan, Addie Miklasiewicz and several other strong ball handlers that are capable of breaking a press and converting it into easy baskets.

Belchertown originally played its matchup defense, but after the aforementioned Raiders backcourt penetrated the paint at will, the Os switched to a 1-3-1 zone. From there, Hampshire struggled to get clean looks, as it didn’t score over 10 points in a single quarter.

“We knew Hampshire wanted to play fast, so we wanted to slow them down,” Woodcock said. “We didn’t press at all today for the first time all year long. Early on we were mixing up our man and [zone] defense, but their ability to get inside on man gave us some trouble. So we switched to our [1-3-1], and it’s something that’s gotten better as the year’s gone on. The girls did a great job with it.”

Despite facing a deficit as big as 18 in the third quarter, Hampshire never quit. The Raiders continued to play hard behind solid second-half performances from Moynahan, Rylie Simmons and Sammi Moreau. Hampshire continued to fight and even outscored Belchertown 9-7 in the fourth, but it was too little too late.

Head coach Jay Plamondon walked away with a sense of assurance knowing his team didn’t have its best stuff, yet still hung tight with one of the better teams in the area.

“Like I told the girls, we played one of our worst games against a really good team, and you only lost by 14,” Plamondon said. “They out-worked us. They were on every loose ball, we weren’t. We seemed flat. We had some flashes where we cut it to 10, but then they came down and hit a big 3 because we lost their best player. Definitely proud of the girls to this point for how much they’ve competed.”

The height of LaRoche and Aubrey Klingensmith overwhelmed Hampshire, as the Orioles controlled the glass behind those two and the effort of Avery Cooper. Belchertown had several second-chance opportunities, many of which led to easy points. However Morghan Litz was perhaps the biggest thorn in the Raiders’ side, as she erupted for a game-high 17 points and broke Hampshire’s press with her quickness.

LaRoche finished with 13 points, Logan Moses added seven and Aubrey McCain tossed in five for Belchertown. Klingensmith splashed home a triple to round out the Orioles’ scoring.

“It’s all energy and effort,” Woodcock said of his team’s rebounding. “Avery Cooper is an unbelievably aggressive rebounder. Chloe has done a really good job anchoring our defense this year. She’s smart, she talks and she rebounds well. We’ve had games where teams are getting two, three, four chances to score. We minimized that for the most part tonight.”

Both Hampshire and Belchertown are in a much different position record-wise than they were a year ago. Although Hampshire did make the state tournament and win preliminary and round of 32 games, the Raiders finished the regular season with an 8-12 record. As of Tuesday, they already have eight wins and are 8-4. Belchertown only won six games last winter, and through 11 contests this go around, the Orioles sit at 8-3.

The two sides of experienced quite the turnaround, and it has them in a good position as the home stretch of the regular season begins.

Moynahan tallied 10 points for Hampshire, playing nearly the whole game in a valiant effort. Moreau knocked in a 3 as the final horn sounded to give her five points, Miklasiewicz, Alyssa Colon-Garcia and Simmons all had four points and Makayla Labrie chipped in two.

“We want to be the team that nobody wants to play against, because it’s hard to play against a team that never quits,” Plamondon said. “We’ve had that mantra since day one. If you keep fighting, you never know what’s going to happen. It’s helped us in games this year. Sometimes fighting until the end has rewards down the road. It may not come in this game, but it might help us later on.”

Hampshire next plays on Saturday, as the Raiders host Granby at 1:30 p.m.

Belchertown plays host to Palmer on Thursday night at 7 p.m.