The Washington Demon girls’ basketball team ended their six-game losing streak by knocking off Burlington 50-35 at home Friday night. Washington would ultimately pull away in the second half thanks to one of their better offensive games in weeks, but Demons head coach Shannon Rugg told KCII Sports that, thanks to a strategic play and the execution from their guards, their defense was the key to victory.

“Makenna Conrad and Kendall Hinrichsen played a box-in-one on their freshman guard,” Rugg said,” who’s pretty handy and does some really good things for them and is their primary ball handler. We just kind of rotated them every couple of minutes, and I thought those two just did an outstanding job of really getting her frustrated.”

Washington is 7-9 overall and 4-5 in conference play. Meanwhile, the Demon boys suffered a conference setback, seeing a close game get away from them in the second half of a 71-43 loss at Burlington Friday night. Washington jumped out to a 12-4 lead in the opening minutes, but Burlington responded by tying the game at 16 at the end of the first quarter. The Demons would eventually fall behind by seven at halftime, but the second half was where they could never recover from, getting outscored 40-19 down the stretch.

Washington had no answers for Burlington senior star Merquiche Lewis Jr. One of the state’s leading scorers poured in another 31 points. The Demons were paced by 17 points from senior forward Ajay Six, while senior guard Ethan Patterson finished with 13 points and sophomore Logan McDole added 11. Washington drops to 7-7 overall, but falling to 5-3 in the Southeast Conference eliminates the Demons from winning a fourth straight conference championship. Both Washington teams next play Monday night at Mid-Prairie. You can hear the doubleheader starting with the Washington HyVee Pregame Show at 5:30 on all KCII stations.