GARDEN CITY — Finally.
Great Bend High School  head coach Jason Tatkenhorst and his Lady Panthers have been working to get to this point since before the Christmas holidays.
And, what better time to play your best basketball game of the season than the Western Athletic Conference opener Friday night?
Coming up with a consummate team performance, Great Bend rode a rock-solid second quarter en route to a 56-35 romp past Garden City at The Garden.
“We’ve been playing great in practice,” Tatkenhorst said. “The girls have been working hard, and none of that really matters until you put it all together on game day.
“We had to keep telling them that they’re playing well, and they proved it tonight.”
A 19-point explosion in the second period, its highest scoring output in a quarter this season, helped Great Bend (2-5,1-0) build a 27-20 lead at halftime. That gap only widened after the break.
“Garden City is a decent team,” Tatkenhorst said of the Lady Buffaloes (3-4, 0-2), “and we feel like we made them do some things that they didn’t want to do because we were executing plays on offense and playing well on defense.
“We’d like to think that a lot of it was us.”
A defensive specialist and regarded as one of the team’s most unselfish players, senior guard Jennifer Allende led a balanced Lady Panthers scoring attack with a career-high 11 points.
“She’s practiced hard on her offensive game,” Tatkenhorst said of Allende. “When she shot the ball, it was perfect form. She hit a 3, and it’s great to see that. The other girls were proud of that, also, getting excited for Jennifer.
“We’re not blessed with somebody that is going to average 15 or 17 points and count on them every night. But that’s why it’s fun with a team like this when you do win because everybody has to contribute.”
Allende said it was a matter of the team running through the progressions of their offense. When the ball came to her in the flow, she was ready.
“I was feeling confident during warm-ups,” Allende said. “I knew I was hitting shots, so I decided to take it and I was on, so I just kept shooting and kept making them.
“It’s a great confidence-booster, especially after some of the losses we’ve had. Actually running through the complete offense ... we were finding ways to score.”
In a low-scoring opening quarter, in which the Lady Panthers’ full-court trap pressure forced Garden into six turnovers in the first four minutes, Great Bend had a slim 8-5 lead.
Lexie Brack knocked down a 3-pointer just 38 seconds into the second quarter and her Lady Panthers teammates followed suit, taking control of the game with 15-5 run over the next five minutes.
They hit Garden from all directions — a wing shot from Cassidy Tutak, back-to-back baskets from the left baseline by Allende and Jordan Haney, a trey from Kalie LeShore, a free throw by Liz Kutina and a pair of foul shots from Kaitlee Spray.
Two made free throws by Allende, followed by Brack’s pull-up basket in the lane, capped the run as  GBHS took its seven-point lead into the break.
“We thought we were down for a while,” said Brack, a senior guard,  of the team’s slow start, “but I think we just had to get our chemistry going.
“I think we work really good together, and we’ve been waiting for this to happen.”
The Lady Panthers outscored Garden 29-15 in the second half to win going away. It was their first win since beating Hays in the seventh-place game of the season-opening Hays City Shoot-Out.
Great Bend entertains Hays on Tuesday night at Panther Fieldhouse in the WAC home opener, with game time set for 6.