Regina combined youth and experience to record one of its most impressive basketball victories of the season.

The all-around brilliance of senior Sara Wilking and the scoring of freshman Emerson Holder and junior Samantha Thomas carried the Saddlelites to a 71-18 victory against Fitzgerald Tuesday in a non-league game.

“Sara’s having a great senior year,” said coach Joe Charrette. “She rebounds. She directs traffic. She saves me a couple timeouts a game because she gets the young kids organized. She’s a tough kid, too. I’m gonna miss her next year.”

Wilking finished with nine points, 13 rebounds and six assists. She was also a factor on the defensive end.

“We’re used to playing in the Catholic League and it’s very, very tough,’” Wilking said. “We knew Fitzgerald was going to be a tough team so we had to come in and play tough. My mentality coming in was to rebound and get the ball to my teammates where they can score.”The Saddlelites’ shooting was a bit off in the first half but they still went to the locker room with a 26-13 lead.

“We took good shots in the first half,” Charrette said. “I told them to keep shooting and they started to fall.”

Regina outscored the Spartans 25-2 in the third quarter and 20-3 in the fourth. Holder, who finished with 28 points, had nine in the third quarter and 11 in the fourth. Thomas also had a strong second half with 12 of her 17 points.

“She’s honestly amazing,” Wilking said of Holder. “She has probably the hardest mindset of anybody I know. She stays after practice to work on her shooting and it showed on the court tonight.

“She knows the game. She knows when she can go and when not to go. She knows when to dish to her teammates and when not to. I know if I draw two girls and can get the ball to her, she’s got an easy bucket. The future’s bright for her.”

Holder has scored at least 20 points in her last six games.

Fitzgerald’s best player, Kaylynn Millander, left the game early in the first quarter after aggravating a knee injury and the Spartans struggled to score against Regina’s defense.

“Regina is an established program and Joe is one of the best coaches in the county. I expected them to be highly-prepared,” said Fitzgerald coach JuWan Shakespear. “This is a learning experience for our underclassmen and for the seniors who want to play at the next level. You can’t dwell on what you’ve done in the past. Everything has to be moving forward.”

The Spartans graduated many of the players who contributed to the team’s 44-3 record the last two years.

“This year is a learning and development year,” Shakespear said. “High school sports goes in waves. We haven’t done horrible this year and we played some competitive teams that showed us what to work on to get ready for next year. We’ve been here before. At the end of the day, it’s educational athletics. I can’t be happy with a loss but there are always bright things to look forward to.”

One is the play of freshman Aliyah White.

“She’s playing 32 (minutes) a game,” Shakespear said. “She’s playing good minutes. She’s making freshman mistakes but that’s the way freshmen grow. We’re asking our freshmen to play high-quality varsity minutes.”

Asia Bowman led Fitzgerald (9-7) with eight points.

Regina improved to 9-8 overall and the Saddlelites are looking forward to the state tournament.

“We’d definitely love to win a regional and go farther,” Wilking said. “We have to play like we did today. If our shots fall, if we play hard, if we play good defense and stay out of foul trouble we can have a good tournament.”

The Saddlelites lost Ella Sikorski and her team-leading 15 points in the fifth game of the season but Regina has adjusted.

“It made the other kids grow,” Charrette said. “If we can take care of the ball we can be a handful in the tournament. We have to limit our turnovers. Our schedule was tough. Of our eight losses, seven were to ranked teams.”