Cardington picked up a couple more win in eighth grade girls basketball, topping Highland and Galion in recent days.

The girls defeated Highland 56-44 on Monday. They jumped out to an early lead in the first quarter and then held off a determined Highland team the rest of the way.

Casey Bertke led Cardington with 27 points, while Hannah Wickline contributed 14 and Baylee Adams added seven. For Highland, Brooklyn Baird scored 21, Madison Cecil had eight and Gena West tallied six.

Cardington would then top Galion by a 62-16 margin on Wednesday to finish their regular season at 15-0. Bertke shot 7-of-8 from the free throw line and propelled her team’s offense with strong point play that resulted in a 33-point performance. Wickline added 16 of her own and Adams tossed in six.

Coach Tim Maceyko would also like to recognize Taylor Linkous, Emily Pearl, Anna Lorimer, Bailey Moodispaugh and Liz Horton for their play.

“The glory tends to go to our post players because of the points they put up, but it’s the passes and the defensive effort of these other girls that set those post players up for the points,” he said. “No one on this team has ever complained or worried about who scored the points this year and that’s a great thing. I feel blessed to work with these kids, as they are a great group of girls and they know we can still be better, so they never quite working. We still have tournament to go and there are several teams that have the talent to take us down and our girls understand that.

Cardington will host the first round of league tournament play on Saturday, Feb. 6 at 1 p.m. Games will be played in the Cardington Elementary School gym.

Information received from Tim Maceyko.