The Pascack Valley Girls Basketball team dropped an early lead Friday afternoon, being defeated by Old Tappan 40-30 at PV after leading 11-4 at the end of the first quarter.

“In spurts [the team] played wonderfully, and at other times not so wonderfully,” PV coach Jeff Jasper said.

After the first quarter ended, the rhythm that the Indians had in the first eight minutes, led to them trailing 23-18 at the half. From there on, the Indians were unable to regain the lead.

“This is a tough opening game to play a team as highly ranked as Old Tappan is,” said Jasper.

Jasper recognized the efforts by individual players, most notably Senior Forward Lyndsay Grilo.

“I thought that [she] played wonderfully on both ends of the floor, she was physical, took risks,” Jasper said.

With two freshmen in Friday’s starting line-up (Kelly Petro and Isabella Bussanich), it was the first game that 40 percent of the lineup had ever played in high school; inconsistency could be attributed to the Indians’ lack of varsity experience.

The team is clearly not where it wants to be in terms of cohesion, but Petro, a guard, has a rather simple solution for the problem.

“I think that the more we play together, the more we will play as a team,” Petro said.

Sophomore guard Shannon Culloo was the high scorer for the Lady Indians scoring 10 points, two of which were free throws.  Senior forward Else DiGiacopo dropped 6 points and Petro added 5 points.

In Sunday’s Hoops 4 Autism event, the Indians defeated Glen Rock, 51-39 and will now gear up for the annual Joe Poli Holiday Tournament, which PV hosts after the Christmas Holiday.

Jasper is not focused on the record for his young team after just one game.

“If I were worrying about whether we were winning or losing I would be the most unhappy guy ever,” he said, “because you can’t win all the time, so you can’t make that the standard which you judge where you are at.”