News Photo by Jonny Zawacki Alpena’s Avery Dubey (21) drives past Tawas defenders on her way to the basket during the second quarter of the Wildcats’ season opener on Thursday.

ALPENA — There was no sign of first game jitters as the Alpena High girls basketball team put together a dominant performance in front of its home crowd on Thursday.

The Wildcats blew out Tawas by a final score of 66-15 in their season opener in new head coach Laura Dubey’s first varsity win.

Defense led to a lot of offense early on as Alpena scored the first 15 points of the game and did so efficiently. The Wildcats held a commanding 23-5 lead after one quarter.

“The girls came ready to play tonight. We have a young team and a deep bench so we’re very lucky and fortunate to have a great group of girls who are extremely talented,” Dubey said. “I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous heading into today so it feels good and it was fun. This group of girls makes it really easy to coach and really fun.”

The Wildcats continued the onslaught during the second quarter as they scored 21 unanswered to open a huge lead and nearly held the Braves scoreless in the period.

Alpena took a 44-7 lead into the break behind an almost flawless first half thanks to active hands on defense, moving the ball up and down the floor at a fast pace, sharing the ball and using their height and length to its advantage. The Wildcats dominated the glass, cleaning up missed shots with easy put backs on second and third chances.

“The girls are super comfortable and we threw in some new plays this year and we just want to relax and play basketball and it’s fun watching them learn how to just play basketball,” Dubey said.

The second half was much of the same as Alpena completely controlled the game from start to finish and got a balanced effort across the board.

The Wildcats were led by Jenna Leeck who scored a game-high 16 points. Reese Wisniewski added 13 points, Avery Dubey finished with nine points, Alayna Trelfa added eight points, and Allie Urlaub chipped in with seven points.

The Wildcats will be back in action on their home court, Monday when they welcome Oscoda.

The Alpena JV team also earned a convincing 58-13 win.

The Wildcats were paced by Lindsey Rondeau and Kierra Prue who scored 16 and 11 respectively.

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BOX SCORE: Field Goals Made/Free Throws Made/Free Throws Attempted/Total Points

ALPENA (66): A. Urlaub, 3 2-5 7; M. Linton, 0 2-2 2; J. Leeck, 8 0-0 16; M. Wisniewski, 1 0-0 2; R. Wisniewski, 5 0-0 13; A. Dubey, 4 1-1 9; A. Trelfa, 4 0-0 8; M. Dubie, 0 4-4 4; T. Franciska, 1 1-4 3.

TAWAS (15): R. Cadorette, 3 1-3 7; A. Herbolsheimer, 1 4-4 6; O. Morand, 1 0-0 2.