After a lackluster start at Baldwin School on Jan. 13, Germantown Friends took the lead for good in the second quarter and continued on to a 46-29 non-league victory.

Freshman Laila McNeal rang up a game-high 15 points for the visiting Tigers, who also marked down nine points for Jojo Lintulahti, eight for London Rothmiller, and seven for Samnatha Sims-Pettiford, all sophomores. GFS improved to 8-5 overall while remaining 1-1 within the Friends Schools League.

Despite receiving 10 points from junior Milan Moriniere, Baldwin slipped to 4-9 overall. Within the Inter-Ac League, Baldwin remained 0-3.

The Bears spent the first 90 seconds of the game on offense, but didn’t score. Germantown Friends was first on the board when Rothmiller banked in a three-point shot from the right wing about two minutes in. McNeal netted a trey from the same side to put the Tigers up 6-0, but they were outscored 10-2 over the last three minutes of the first quarter.

A “three” by junior Cydnei Crisden got the home team going, and after Baldwin pulled even at 8-8 early in the final minute, Moriniere scored in transition with four seconds remaining to give her team a 10-8 edge.

Germantown Friends’ Lintulahti made two three-pointers from opposite sides of the floor during the second quarter. The first one created a 12-12 tie around 90 seconds into the period. Later on, her second trey moved the Tigers ahead for good, 19-16. Eighth-grader Mel Budd then put in a transition layup to set the halftime score at 21-16.

An improvement in rebounding and defensive awareness had contributed to Germantown’s 13-6 outcome in the second round, and that trend continued in quarters three (13-7) and four (12-6).

Observing this contest was different than watching teams stacked with college prospects engage in some high-stakes showdown. Both head coaches, longtime GFS mentor Mike Lintulahti and first-year Baldwin skipper Matt Birch, are teachers of the game. Along with proficiency in a specific sport, life lessons are being learned here.

Germantown Friends has more seasoned basketball players, but the Tigers lost one of their best, sophomore Taylor Linton, when she transferred to Philadelphia Public League power Imhotep Charter.

At Baldwin, hardly any of the current team members consider basketball their primary sport. Birch, who in 2014 coached the GFS girls’ soccer team to a league championship, appears to have the dedication and the patience that will be required to build up the Baldwin program.

After the Jan. 13 non-league victory, Lintulahti’s Tigers were headed back into Friends Schools League competition for the rest of the month. Next up would be a struggling Academy of the New Church squad, but after that GFS was slated to take on the two titans of the FSL, Westtown School and Friends Central.