The Brandywine basketball team played with a heavy heart Wednesday night in its interstate opponent South Bend St. Joseph.

Earlier in the day, senior Morgan Smallwood and assistant coach Katie Smallwood’s grandmother passed away. The two came ready to go Wednesday night and it was Morgan’s basket with 34.5 seconds remaining that sealed the Bobcats’ 46-40 victory.

“Our hearts are with Morgan and Katie,” Brandywine coach Josh Hood said. “They are members of this basketball program’s family and for them to come out here tonight and play as hard and as good as she did was amazing. After the game we told them this one was for Grandma.”

The Bobcats looked to be in the spirit of the holiday season early in the game as numerous turnovers against a quick St. Joseph squad gave The Indians the early momentum, which they turned into a 17-8 lead after one period of play.

Brandywine continued to make adjustments throughout the first quarter and into the second quarter, which seemed to help slow down the St. Joseph offense and begin to turn the momentum in favor of the Bobcats.

A 3-pointer by Carlie Newman with 4:14 to play in the opening half cut the lead to 19-15 and a bucket by Mackenzie Shelton trimmed the lead down to 19-17 with 3:37 on the clock.

Lauren Leonard’s free throw made it a one-point game 17 second later and when Rachel Ort scored her only points of the night from the free throw line, the Bobcats led 20-19 with 2:47 to play in the half.

St. Joseph reclaimed the lead on a basket by Alexandra Kubsch and extended it to 24-22 with 50.1 seconds remaining in the half when Kubsch was fouled taking a long 3-point shot. She made all three free throws to make it 24-22.

Two more Kubsch free throws 25 seconds later gave the Indians a 26-23 halftime lead.

The adjustments at the defensive end continued at halftime and the Bobcats came out with a different focus.

The result was just 14 points allowed in the second half and only four in the third quarter as Brandywine rallied to take the lead.

“I thought the girls really did a great job,” Hood said. “You know, last year we really didn’t play a lot of zone. We knew this year we’ve got eight strong, but we’ve got to find some things when man-to-man’s not working and we can’t get up and down. I thought for us to get into a half court game I thought the summer really paid off for us. We couldn’t trap a lot of teams we played in travel basketball this summer and we had to learn how to win games in the half court and tonight I thought we showed that in the half court we can play.”

Sarah Hall made it 28-23 for the Indians before Leonard kicked off the comeback bid with an inside basket. Kelsey Prestley followed that up with another shot in the paint and it was 28-28 with five minutes to play in the third quarter.

After a Kathryn Campbell basket made it 30-27, Newman scored the first of three consecutive baskets to cut the lead to one (30-29) with 2:56 to play. Her offensive rebound and put-back gave Brandywine the lead for good. She finished off the quarter with a basket with less than a minute to play to make 33-30 heading into the final stanza.

Newman scored a pair of baskets in the fourth quarter, but it was Prestly that did most of the work inside. She collected a basket and was 4-of-6 from the free throw line as the Bobcats staved off the Indians’ comeback bid.

But it wasn’t until Prestly picked off a pass near the St. Joseph free throw line and fed it ahead to a streaking Smallwood that the victory was assured.

Newman finished the night with 17 points, while Prestly added 11 and Leonard finished with seven. Smallwood ended up with five points.

Bubsch lead all scorers and St. Joseph with 18. Hall added 10.

ST. JOSEPH 40

Catherine Raster 3 0-2 6; Nicole Przybyslawski 0 0-0 ; Jordan Wawrzyniak 0 0-0 0; Sarah Hall 3 4-4 10; Mollie Gillean 0 0-0 0; Kathryn Campbell 2 0-0 4; Alexandra Bubsch 4 7-7 18; Keri Grove 0 0-0 0; Anna Bednarek 1 0-0 2. Taylor Kurzhal 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 13 11-13 40

BRANDYWINE 46

Carlie Newman 6 4-8 17; Rachel Ort 0 2-2 2; Mackenzie Shelton 1 0-0 2; Kelsey Prestly 3 5-9 11; Morgan Smallwood 2 1-1 5; Lauren Leonard 2 3-4 7; Madison Pellow 0 2-2 2. TOTALS: 14 17-26 40

St. Joseph 17 26 30 40

Brandywine 8 23 33 46

3-point baskets: St. Joe 3 (Kubsch), Brandywine 1 (Newman). Total fouls: St. Joe 20, Brandywine 10. Fouled out: None. Varsity record: Brandywine 6-0