Staff photo / Brian Yauger. Bristol’s Lauren Church readies to shoot a jump shot against Chalker on Wednesday.

BRISTOLVILLE — While it faced a deficit for much of the game, the score didn’t weigh on Bristol.

The Panthers chipped away at that lead throughout the final quarter to take down Chalker, 45-36.

Defense changed the fourth quarter.

“Our defensive intensity (helped us),” Panthers coach Randall Ward said. “We’re a program that defensively is where we hang our hat on, and I think it really changed things. Our assistant coach said we should go to a box-and-one. We put a freshman on (Abby Grimm) and the game really changed from that moment on for us.”

A 19-point outing from sophomore Lauren Church didn’t hurt either.

“Our sophomore Lauren Church, she’s a nice player,” Ward said. “She works extremely hard. She kind of, down the stretch, scored and put the ball in the basket for us.”

Senior Peyton Gall added 12 points while emerging as a potent rebounder for the Panthers.

Everything started coming together after halftime as Bristol got more comfortable.

“I didn’t like that they were getting to some of the loose balls,” Ward said. “I thought we rushed offensively, defensively, and I didn’t think we were communicating. All basic stuff. And we’re a young team, so it took some minutes for us to get going but we knew in big games that we had to get back to the basics and we did that tonight.”

Both benches are ripe with young players as Chalker has six freshmen that saw minutes on Wednesday.

Freshman Riley Ashcraft finished second on the Wildcats in points with eight. Grimm paced the team with 17.

Chalker (0-3, 0-1 NAC) is still searching for its first win after playing in its first game since Thanksgiving.

By the end of the game, the rust grew to be too much to shake.

“We were short-staffed, so our legs were starting to go,” Wildcats coach Rich Hudak said. “We haven’t played in a couple weeks, and that’s big. It’s hard to mimic game intensity at practice. We try our best, but it’s hard. That’s really the final factor. When your body starts to go, your mind starts to go. We’re going and we make some mistakes, and we’ll clean those up. I’m looking forward to playing and playing some more games in a row here so we can get going.”

The Wildcats travel to Windham on Friday to take on the Bombers.

Bristol (4-2, 3-0 NAC) plays host to Agape Christian Academy on Friday.

As things get tougher down the stretch, the Panthers will look toward the program’s goals for guidance.

“(When we’re down, we) just stay calm, stick to our goals,” Church said. “We have three main goals. Play hard, keep it up, and we just push through.”